Chapter 16
poem sixteen of thirty american poems by various night peace by john dos passos this lipervox recording is in the public domain reading by mab night peace a silver web has the moon spun a silver web upon all the sky where the frail stars quiver every one like tangled nuts that hum and die the moon has tangled the dull night in her silver skin and set alight each dew-damp branch with milky flame and huge the moon broods on the night my soul is caught in the web of the moon like a shrilling gnat in a spider's web importunate memories shrill in my ears like the gnats that die in the spider web lovely as death in the moon's shroud were town streets gray houses dim full of strange peace in the silent night as we walked our footsteps clattered loud we felt the night as a troubled song oh the triumphing sense of a life athrob
behind those walls in those dark streets like the sound of a river swift unseen flowing in darkness oh the hoarse half-heard murmur swirling beneath the snowy beauty of moonlight and that other night when the river rippled with faint spheres of street lights vaguely reflected gray the evening like an opal low a gray moon shrouded in sea-fog air pregnant with spring rasp of my steps beside the lapping water within the dark down the worn-out years a sob of broken loves old pain of dead farewells and one face fading into gray a silver web as the moon's moon spun a silver web over all the sky in her floating glory one by one like gnats in a web the stars die this recording is in the public domain
