OCTOBER MOON 

Prickled vines Autumn's last jewels stud,
cold, pallid circlets upon purple heads;
in their veins beats Summer's scented blood,
as a silvern chill the chestnut air threads.

Out of tenebrous woods, darkness creeps,
deepest indigo tints his nighttime lair,
misted breeze o'er pale blue daisies weeps,
as her eyes rain drops of blackest despair.

Years ago this day, she lay abed,
as harvest's songs echoed thro' wood and dell;
wild blackberry bushes seeped rich red,
as her newborn's cry rang its own death knell.

His face she glimpsed in the bright moonlight,
ere this bud of shame they pitiless crushed;
from her arms was he torn with much spite,
her beseeching cries they reproachful hushed.

Beneath wild bramble roots they laid him,
Earth took to her this child of mortal sin;
nor memory nor grief could e'er dim,
Michael bides in her heart, her dearest kin. 

Thenceforth, every Old Michaelmas day,
when Lucifer brambles trampled and smote,
she spies, tho' now she is blind and grey,
a ghost of a moon in her void afloat.

© 2014 Lily's Verse

Lilium Candidum

Image: CLAIRE DE LUNE
source: www.pinterest.com
Artist: Henri-Joseph Harpignies