Shadows in Moonlight TPAGEWRIGHT
s n o r t a a a a a t s a a B o a a ' a a s'a'o'B'
SHADOWS IN MOONLIGHT By T.
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MCMXXVII •joooooooooooooooooooooooocoppoog
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"For the shadows that the moon casts are strange^ and not like other shadows', and within them are hidden queer secrets and unknown beauties for those who know where to seek, . . . "
Copyright
by T. Page Wright
P. O. BOX 156 NEW YORK, N. Y. 10002
F O R E W O R D
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HY should one feel the need to apologize for writing, any more than he might need to apologize for breathing, or loving, or indulging in any of the other activities of life? Yet, having written so much, I shall proceed with an apology. Those who recognize the quotation from which I have adopted the title of this collection may consider that I have been presumptious in my choice, and therein lies my theme—I might have said my text. Like all poets, I am a poet because I am a paradox, and must spend my days in the quest of what I know is unattainable and forever shall be. Poets shall never cease to seek for perfect beauty because they shall realize that perfect beauty can never be in finite form. Therein is paradox. If I quest for perfect beauty—and how far I have failed in my quest the futile words which follow shall show—though there be no objective perfection that I may find, must I not to set forth on such an errand have in myself a trace of what I seek? Can the urge to seek out beauty come from other than the urge that forces like to like? I have yearned for the immaculate, and found earth, for from clay we were fashioned, and with death we shall sink into the muck again, with all the ugliness of putrefaction to testify that we were not even pure as the clean fresh earth from which we were fashioned. What matter? All we who walk in the gutter gaze at the stars, and I like others have found words a clumsy way of catching them. But behind the faltering clumsiness is the urge of beauty, and there may be some enough akin to pierce through the words and see again the wonder that was there to inspire them. It is for such that I write, for if there be any such, to them the words shall fade away, and beauty shall shine out, and so it is that unashamed I may offer this product of my quest.
TO ALL WHO HAVE LOVED I DEDICATE THIS BOOK AND IT MATTERS NOT AT ALL WHETHER IT BE BEAUTY THEY HAVE LOVED OR WOMEN OR EXISTENCE
T h e Tale—a fragment
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Y love watched through the night with me(Hear you this tale, my host!) A white dead moon rose silently Pale as an evil ghost, And life ran cold and love fell dead— (Hear you this tale, my friend!) But in the sky the moon waxed red— (Oh, hear me to the end— I am afraid, my ft iend!)