Silence, a bird's cry, the moon's flight
La Fuite de la Lune
"Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze."
Poem
To outer senses there is peace,A dreamy peace on either hand,Deep silence in the shadowy land,Deep silence where the shadows cease.
Save for a cry that echoes shrillFrom some lone bird disconsolate;A corncrake calling to its mate;The answer from the misty hill.
And suddenly the moon withdrawsHer sickle from the lightening skies,And to her sombre cavern flies,Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.
In brief
SummaryThree short stanzas paint a still night. To the outer senses there is peace and deep silence over the shadowy land. The only sounds are a lonely bird's shrill cry, a corncrake calling to its mate, and an answer from the misty hill. Then, as the sky begins to lighten, the moon suddenly withdraws 'Her sickle' and flies to her dark cavern, 'Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze'. The title, 'The Flight of the Moon', names that last movement.
Key themes
"A corncrake calling to its mate;"
Summary
The first stanza sets a mood of stillness: 'To outer senses there is peace', 'A dreamy peace on either hand', with 'Deep silence in the shadowy land' and 'Deep silence where the shadows cease'. The phrase 'outer senses' hints that the calm may lie only on the surface. The second stanza breaks the silence a little, with 'a cry that echoes shrill From some lone bird disconsolate', 'A corncrake calling to its mate', and 'The answer from the misty hill'.
The third stanza brings the poem's only event. 'And suddenly the moon withdraws Her sickle from the lightening skies' and flies 'to her sombre cavern', 'Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze'. The moon, pictured as a woman carrying a sickle, slips away as the dawn light grows, and the night scene ends with her going.
Characters
The moon
Fleeing at dawn
Pictured as a woman carrying a sickle, the thin crescent shape in which she hangs in the sky. As the skies lighten she suddenly withdraws and flies to 'her sombre cavern', veiled in yellow gauze, and her flight gives the poem its title.
Themes
Stillness and sound
The poem measures silence by what breaks it. 'Deep silence' is stated twice in the first stanza, and the second admits only one cry, from 'some lone bird disconsolate', then a corncrake's call and its answer 'from the misty hill'. Each sound is small and far off, which makes the quiet around it deeper. The poem is an exercise in listening.
The moon as a shy goddess
The moon is the only figure in the poem, and she behaves like a person: she 'withdraws Her sickle', flies to 'her sombre cavern', and goes 'Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze'. The sickle recalls the thin crescent, and the veil the haze of dawn. The title, 'The Flight of the Moon', makes her departure the event of the poem.
Quotes
Context
La Fuite de la Lune, French for 'The Flight of the Moon', is the second of two short poems printed together as Impressions in Wilde's Poems (1881), among the Flowers of Gold; the first is Les Silhouettes. Like its companion it is three four-line stanzas long and paints a scene of sky, land and birds without comment.
About this edition
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