 | The poet, the fool and the faeries |  |
102
XII
Ocean Mists
All day the mists crept stealthily from sea,—A silent army of invading white,
That planted glimmering banners on the height,
And blotted out each rock and hill and tree:
Far as the eye could see, mysteriously,
Wild tents arose; it seemed that all the coasts
Of all the world had sent their specter hosts
To 'siege the land which Autumn held in fee.
The landscape, hanging a disconsolate head,—
Tears and dejection in its attitude,—
Dripped, mourning for the Summer that was gone;
While through the garden, where the flowers lay dead,
A phantom moved, of melancholy mood,—
Trailing the ghost of beauty, dead at dawn.
| The poet, the fool and the faeries | |