Now evening shakes her wings
and the feathers of darkness
flutter upon the world
like finished songs.

And like music that is still
after soft playing
the dead sun's petals are lying
on the seaward hill

heaped in their rose-red riot
of dusky flames,
bright as the lonely dreams
of an old, mad poet.

The sea has brimmed the bay
to the sand's edge
along the windless beach;
the small craft lie

on her pearl breast asleep
like old ships' ghosts
long-drowned, with their ropes and masts
mirrored deep.

page 209

All the world's in the water,
see where it lies—
grey cliffs and trees, and skies
softly a-glitter

with the new-born gleaming stars
of heaven's meadows
lost in wet shadows
with silver planet-flowers,

and the white, bulging clouds
where the young moon shines
crossed by the wavering lines
of the ship's shrouds…

Now from the darkened sky
the last light has drained;
all the world is drowned
in the ancient sea.