MYTHOS

Conrad and Boykin, on the lunar mountain,

Stretching their Earth limbs saw the mother planet.

And the next day (as here we count the hours),

Rising, they drove into the shuddering soil

Signal posts, and broadcast: "We are here.

The air is heavier than the whiskered fellow

Said in the book, though nothing breathes alive.

In the last hours the machine purred on as quiet

As a stroked cat. Tomorrow we set out

To spy the land, toward the hollow there

In the Serene Sea, the name upon the map.

Good night. Good night." On the sixth day thereafter,

Their paths divergent for more fruitful finding,

Conrad alone, on a long-shadowed bottom

Of the Serene Sea, with the sky jet black but lustrous,

Through which the stars shone bright as points of flame

Hot through the furnace cracks in a dark cellar—­

And the Earth-globe white across a quarter heaven—­

Saw on the plain a monstrous figure prowling

Slow through the shadows that the peaks laid down.

(So swore he on the Holy Book when come

In the august judges' presence later.) Turning,

Hand put on mouth in horror he skulked away

A few steps shaking, and heard the grate of shale

Sent sliding by his foot. The farther tread