The wan sun westers, faint and slow;
The eastern distance glimmers gray;
An eerie haze comes creeping low Across the little, lonely bay;
And from the sky-line far away About the quiet heaven are spread Mysterious hints of dying day, Thin, delicate dreams of green and red.
And weak, reluctant surges lap And rustle round and down the strand.
No other sound . . . If it should hap, The ship that sails from fairy-land!
The silken shrouds with spells are manned, The hull is magically scrolled, The squat mast lives, and in the sand The gold prow-griffin claws a hold.
It steals to seaward silently;
Strange fish-folk follow thro' the gloom;
Great wings flap overhead; I see The Castle of the Drowsy Doom Vague thro' the changeless twilight loom, Enchanted, hushed. And ever there She slumbers in eternal bloom, Her cushions hid with golden hair.
1875
