Shadows

Below a sad and soaring loon
The temple stair is green with mold,
Though in the dawn is shot with gold,
At dusk with silver from the moon.

Now ghost ships in the night are moored
Against the quay of crumbled oak
As shadows round the bay still cloak
These triremes bound with silver cord.

Nearby the ruined, buried town
Sleeps like a soft and silent breeze
Below the tall and leafless trees
That wear the moonlight like a gown.

Here on the headland night will bring
Soft voices speaking in strange tongues
From spectral lips and spectral lungs,
The air’s filled with their whispering.

And no more do the clamors fall
To echo down the avenues,
No more the royal retinues,
The music or the madrigals.

The watchman, who is ashen, pale,
Points to the far periphery
Upon the sable midnight sea,
Where billows one lone ghostly sail.

Below a sad and soaring loon
The temple stair is green with mold,
Though in the dawn is shot with gold,
At dusk with silver from the moon.