Crying that beauty is remembered still.

There will be wood-mist moving by the gate,
There will be gathering to the fire by night,
The greying ashes falling in the grate,--
And long remembering, in the failing light,
Of ghosts returning for a wisp of fame,
Cloudy and brief along the smoke and flame.

MARINERS

Men who have loved the ships they took to sea,
Loved the tall masts, the prows that creamed with foam,
Have learned, deep in their hearts, how it might be
That there is yet a dearer thing than home.
The decks they walk, the rigging in the stars,
The clean boards counted in the watch they keep,--
These, and the sunlight on the slippery spars,
Will haunt them ever, waking and asleep.

Ashore, these men are not as other men;
They walk as strangers through the crowded street,
Or, brooding by their fires, they hear again
The drone astern, where gurgling waters meet,
Or see again a wide and blue lagoon,
And a lone ship that rides there with the moon.

AN ABANDONED INN

Along this stillness steals their ghostly laughter:
The oaths they swore, the clamant song and jest,
Are haunting still each oaken beam and rafter,
That looked on many a gay, forgotten guest.
The clink of cups, the muffled clang of swords,
These, and the flapping cards, will not be stilled,
Though dust has spread the long-abandoned boards,
And hides at last the crimson wine they spilled.

And still, they say, on sullen nights of rain,
A passer-by may hear, beyond the door,
An old accounting for this ugly stain
That makes an evil pattern on the floor--
A sound of dice--an oath--a crashing chair ...
And sudden, grievous silence fallen there.

PRONE

Here where these grasses thrust between my fingers,
And where the earth against my palms is cool,
The hot day dies ... and only late light lingers
Above the shadowed valley's misty pool.
The trees have bent above me like tall lovers,
The stars return their slow, familiar way,
And a great, stirless quiet comes and covers
The traveller resting at the end of day.

I think this body, with its foolish fears,
May grow less foolish and less fearful so,
Learning that at the end of wandering years,
Waits but this house that it has come to know,
Familiar in its sleepy-hearted mirth,
The cool