Rehearsing Repetitions on the Rappahannock

Flatterers Among the RosesDoes the moon sail in its sumptuous heavenDisfigured by pity, Blindly tearful in an icy lair?To walk in the moonlight, to trodThe verdant ambers, and to think of nothing, What sort of matter for a poem is that?Is it a matter of having nothingIn the mind, icy sequesterOf nothing, of nothingness layered in its own absence?Or is it a matter, ratherOf nothingness icily conceived, icily meant?It is a matter of sinister consequence.To walk in the violet moonlightDiscussing the moon from which it flaresDisfiguring the rosesIs a kind of nothing, a suaveHollowness that we may hold nearOr suspend between us as we walk.O savage celestial, misty moon, Snarling in your lair, speak, If speak you must, in dismal syllablesSome more blatant human mean