The full moon soars above the misty street
filling the air with a shimmer of silver.
Roofs and chimney-pots cut silhouettes
of dark against the milk-washed sky!
O moon fast waning!
Seems only a night ago you hung
a shallow cup of topaz-colored glass
that tilted towards my feverish dry lips
brimful of promise in the flaming west:
O moon fast waning!
And each night fuller and colder, moon,
the silver has welled up within you; still I
I have not drunk, only the salt tide
of parching desires has welled up within me:
only you have attained, waning moon.
The moon soars white above the stony street,
wan with fulfilment. O will the tide
of yearning ebb with the moon's ebb
leaving me cool darkness and peace
with the moon's waning?
_Madrid_