Over the sea a full moon rides, 
Tugging at lovers and at tides.
Though such a moon deserves high praise,
It is her sister holds my gaze
Tonight — her wave-reflected twin,
Lapped with shadow, that draws me in.
Moon on the water, moon of the sea,
How is it that you bring to me
Tonight an unexpected boon,
Here where a bossa nova tune,
Desafinado, floats my way
And drifts on the air across the bay?

For in your drowning face I seem
To find, as in a far-off dream,
Another face, once loved so well,
Which now in the waters’ gentle swell
Smiles in an old accustomed way.
Smiling, she seems to bid me stay
A little while, or just so long
As hangs on the air this memoried song.
So sax and guitar beneath the moon,
Weaving a haunting Latin tune,
Answer each other phrase by phrase
And echo our bossa nova days.

So many moons have come and gone
Since we staked out our Avalon.
We were two souls in perfect time,
A song, a symphony, a rhyme,
An orchestrated air, so rich
Our kisses burned at fever pitch.
Now you, the sky-moon’s watery twin,
Show me her smiling face within
Your rippled circle on the sea,
And call up long regrets in me
That we at last, beneath a moon
Less calm than this, fell out of tune.

Ah, for those first delirious days
When neither’s voice found wandering ways!
Yet gladly now I honour her
For what she was, for what we were.
A dream in an image — such is she
Now, a dream and a memory.
And now, finding her face in light
Here on the rippled bay tonight,
Here in your sea-moon circle, I
Extend to her a last goodbye.
For this, for this, she smiles at me
Out of the night, out of the sea.