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Day, you have bruised and beaten me,

As rain beats down the bright, proud sea,

Beaten my body, bruised my soul,

Left me nothing lovely or whole—

Yet I have wrested a gift from you,

Day that dies in dusky blue:

For suddenly over the factories

I saw a moon in the cloudy seas—

A wisp of beauty all alone

In a world as hard and gray as stone—

Oh who could be bitter and want to die

When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky?

I stood beside a hill

Smooth with new-laid snow,

A single star looked out

From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature

That saw what I could see—

I stood and watched the evening star

As long as it watched me.