“What the Moon Brings“

   Prose poem (740 words); written on June 5, 1922. First published in the National Amateur(May 1923); first collected in BWS;corrected text in MW

   The narrator professes at the outset, “I hate the moon—I am afraid of it” because he once saw the moon shining on an old garden near a shallow stream. Various strange sights greet the narrator’s eye, including dead faces in the river. Then the waters ebb, and the narrator sees an appalling sight: the vast basalt crown of a “shocking eikon” whose forehead was beginning to appear from under the waves, and whose feet must be an incalculable distance below. The narrator flees in terror. The vignette suffers from vagueness and from a certain hysterical tone that makes the entire work seem flamboyant and unmotivated.