MOONSET

But see! . . . the body does not sink;
It rides upon the tide
(A starbeam on the dagger's haft),
With staring eyes and wide . . .
And now, up from the darkling sea,
Down from the failing moon,
Are come strange shapes to mock at me . . .
All pallid from the star-pale sea,
White from the paling moon . . .

Or whirling fast or wheeling slow
Around, around the corpse they go,
All bloodless o'er the sickened sea
Beneath the ailing moon!

And are they only wisps of fog
That dance along the waves?
Only shapes of mist the wind
Drives along the waves?
Or are they spirits that the sea
Has cheated of their graves?
The ghosts of them that died at sea,
Of murdered men flung in the sea,
Whose bodies had no graves?--
Lost souls that haunt for evermore
The sobbing reef and hollowed shore
And always-murmuring caves?