Two people walk through wet grass at night under a sky of drowsy starlight. All around them, insects fill the low meadows near the sea with a continuous singing—a sound the speaker calls both “sleepless” and “sleepy,” which captures how it blends urgency with a kind of trance. The rhythm is described almost mechanically, like a wheel turning and trembling without pause for miles. Against that endless hum, the walkers seem small and suspended between two enormous presences: the red star Antares ahead and the black sea behind. The mood is hushed, warm, and a little hypnotic, full of awe but not fear. It feels like a private, shared moment swallowed by the vast, living dark.
September Night — Summary
We walked in the dew, in the drowsy starlight To the sleepless, sleepy sound Of insects singing in the low sea-meadows For miles and miles around; With a wheel and a whirr the resistless rhythm Trembled incessantly; Antares was red in the sky before us, And behind us, the blackness of the sea.