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May 1, 2022

The Moonlight

Yvor Winters

I waited on
In the late autumn moonlight,
A train droning out of thought—

The mind on moonlight
And on trains.

Blind as a thread of water
Stirring through a cold like dust,
Lonely beyond all silence

And humming this to children,
The nostalgic listeners in sleep,

Because no guardian
Strides through distance upon distance,
His eyes a web of sleep.

This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on May 1, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.

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“The Moonlight” appeared in Secession no. 7 (Winter, 1924).

Yvor Winters, born on October 17, 1900 in Chicago, was a poet, critic, and professor. He was the author of many books, including his Collected Poems (Swallow Press, 1960), which won the 1961 Bollingen Prize. He died on January 25, 1968.

“Often I Am Permitted to Return to a Meadow” by Robert Duncan
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“Moonlight” by Sara Teasdale
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Thanks to Brandy Nālani McDougall, author of The Salt-Wind: Ka Makani Pa‘Akai (Kuleana ‘Oiwi Press, 2008), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Listen to a Q&A about McDougall’s curatorial approach and find out more about our guest editors for the year.

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Poem-a-Day - "The Moonlight" by Yvor Winters

The Moonlight

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