Sharp and straight are the scaffold poles,
Black on a delicate sky;
Upright they stand, across they lie,
In changeless angles fixed and bound,
The sunset light in mist is drowned,
And the moon has risen high;
High above houses, high and clear
Above the scaffolding,
So exquisite, so faint a thing,
The young moon's silver curve that shines
Above the fretting, tangled lines,
With the old moon in her ring.
The young moon holds the old black moon
In a sky all grey with frost,
By cable wires barred and crossed,
And below, the haze of purplish-brown
Smokes upward from the lamp-lit town
Where outlines all are lost.
The pure pale arch of windless sky,
The pure bright young moon's thread,
These wide and still are overhead;
And in the dusky glare below
The lamps go dotting, row on row,
And there is movement, to and fro,
Where far the pavements spread.