Twenty-Five Songs in Five Sets of Five Each: Set II , opus 68

The sea scarce heaves in its calm sleep,
    The wind has not awakened yet
    Tho' in its dreams it seems to fret
For, ever and again, the deep
    Hearkens a sigh that steals along
    As might some echo of sad song:

Ah, there the wind stirs! Lo, the dark
Dim sea's on fire around our barque.

    (Towards evening)

The slow heave of the sleeping sea
    With pulse-like motion swells and falls,
    And drowsily a stray gull calls
The very wail of melancholy;
    All day the moveless mist has slept
    On the same bosom east winds swept:

No breath of change in the grey mist,
Save just a dream of amethyst.

The yellow waste of yellow sands,
    The bronze haze of a scorching sky!
    Lo, what are these that broken lie;
Were these once temples made with hands
    Once towers and palaces that knew
    No hint of that which one day threw

Their greatness to the winds---made this
The memory of Persepolis?

Deep black against the dying glow
    The tall elms stand; the rooks are still;
    No windbreath makes the faintest thrill
Amongst the leaves; the fields below
    Are vague and dim in twilight shades --
    Only the bats wheel in their raids
On the grey flies, and silently
Great dusky moths go flitting by.

The air is blue and keen and cold,
    With snow the roads and fields are white
    But here the forest's clothed with light
And in a shining sheath enrolled.
    Each branch, each twig, each blade of grass,
    Seems clad miraculously with glass:
Above the ice-bound streamlet bends
Each frozen fern with crystal ends.