A lone speaker wakes outside at night while everyone else sleeps indoors. He feels small and isolated, crouched to the earth under a moon he imagines as a distant, dreaming queen—aloof and lonely herself. A fierce longing pulses through him: a desire for something beyond ordinary experience, a “heatless fire” and “flameless ecstasy,” a pure spiritual intensity that seems always out of reach. As he lies helpless, he senses the tread of unseen watchers and the rustle of wings above his head, an angelic radiance that becomes too much to bear. Then the vision shifts. The earth itself kindles into cool, soothing flame; white lips of desire brush his forehead, crooning slumbrous things. Invisible hands guide him upward, past silver trumpets and voices of praise, toward a maternal, loving presence. The journey ends in laughter and light, a moment of complete union. The poem moves from lonely yearning into a hushed, ecstatic surrender, creating a mood of night awe that swells into dizzying radiance.
Sleeping Out: Full Moon — Summary
They sleep within. . . . I cower to the earth, I waking, I only. High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely.
We have slept too long, who can hardly win The white one flame, and the night-long crying; The viewless passers; the world's low sighing With desire, with yearning, To the fire unburning, To the heatless fire, to the flameless ecstasy! . . .
Helpless I lie. And around me the feet of thy watchers tread. There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head, An intolerable radiance of wings. . . .
All the earth grows fire, White lips of desire Brushing cool on the forehead, croon slumbrous things. Earth fades; and the air is thrilled with ways, Dewy paths full of comfort. And radiant bands, The gracious presence of friendly hands, Help the blind one, the glad one, who stumbles and strays, Stretching wavering hands, up, up, through the praise Of a myriad silver trumpets, through cries, To all glory, to all gladness, to the infinite height, To the gracious, the unmoving, the mother eyes, And the laughter, and the lips, of light.