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 BIRDS DO THUS by ROBERT FROST THEY HAVEN'T HEARD THE WEST IS OVER by JAMES GALVIN HOUSE WITH THE MARBLE STEPS by AMY LOWELL MONADNOCK IN EARLY SPRING by AMY LOWELL HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 5 by EZRA POUND |