| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Laughing in the Moonlight | | By Helen Louise Birch |
| | | THREE women laughing | |
| In the moonlight, | |
| In the night— | |
| Eerie, | |
| Strange, | 5 |
| With sound of water | |
| Thundering up the cliff; | |
| With sound that comes from swaying boughs | |
| Of pine trees, | |
| Giant pines of a virgin forest— | 10 |
| Fringe of wilderness, | |
| The border | |
| Of a narrow strip of clearing | |
| On the bluffs. | |
| |
| Laughing! How their voices carry! | 15 |
| Fearlessly! | |
| Such merriment | |
| As must awake the sleepy soul of the forest. | |
| Merriment so mad— | |
| How it carries! | 20 |
| Elfish laughter— | |
| Far out over the wicked waters, | |
| Peals and peals! | |
| |
| And the moonlight wavers, glitters, | |
| Strokes their white throats with its poison; | 25 |
| Makes its streaks and streams of silver | |
| Cold and colder in its joy; | |
| Sinks its sharp, silver-dappled, shining moon-fangs | |
| In their eyes. | |
| |
| Laughing women, | 30 |
| Mad and merry, | |
| Send their voices on the winds; | |
| Calling destiny about them, | |
| Calling to titanic powers: | |
| Till their play, | 35 |
| And their lightness, | |
| And their madness, | |
| And their harsh and eerie laughter | |
| Rouses forces that through aeons | |
| Long have slept— | 40 |
| Slept and waited for a summons | |
| Deep enough, | |
| Wild enough, | |
| Light enough, | |
| And evil enough, | 45 |
| To call them forth. | |
| Slow they stretch their unused muscles— | |
| Answer in a dawning smile. | |
| |
| Three women are laughing in the moonlight, | |
| In the night; | 50 |
| And earth is reeling | |
| In light and shadow. | |
| Air and water, | |
| In some fearful manner, | |
| Mingle | 55 |
| With their voices. | |
| All of nature throngs and rushes | |
| Into the vast, | |
| Chaotic | |
| Drift of sound— | 60 |
| A world of maddened, unchained souls, | |
| Of wicked, savage glee! | |
| |
| Naked Earth | |
| Swings into consciousness, | |
| Uncovered, | 65 |
| Sudden, | |
| Reeling in light and shadow, | |
| Through this hellish, hellish laughter!— | |
| Through this wild, | |
| Malicious, | 70 |
| Evil, | |
| Evil | |
| Laughter! | | | | |
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