BESIDE the smooth black lacquer sea You and I move aimlessly. The grass is springing pale, alone, Tuneless as a quartertone. . . . Remote your face seems, far away Beneath the ghostly water, Day, That laps across you, rustling loud -- Until you seem a muslined cloud Beneath your fluted hat's ghost-flowers -- The little dog that runs and cowers Black as Beelzebub, now tries To catch the white lace butterflies. . . . But we are mute and move again Across the wide and endless plain, Vague as the little nachreous breeze That plays with gilt rococo seas. We are two ghosts to-day -- each ghost For ever wandering and lost; No yesterday and no to-morrow Know we -- neither joy nor sorrow, For this is the hour when like a swan The silence floats, so still and wan, That bird-songs, silver masks to hide Strange faces, now all sounds have died, Find but one curdled sheepskin flower Embodied in this ghostly hour. . . . | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MERCY OF LAZARUS by STEPHEN DOBYNS TO SEE THE STARS IN DAYLIGHT by JAMES GALVIN BRIGHTNESS AS A POIGNANT LIGHT by DAVID IGNATOW I WANT TO LIVE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON STREET CRIES: 6. TO RICHARD WAGNER by SIDNEY LANIER LA RONDE DU DIABLE by AMY LOWELL A NEW HYMN by KATHERINE MANSFIELD SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DIPPOLD THE OPTICIAN by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |