O Youths, turn back! the year is getting late,
And autumn has no pity for the slain.
Twining like serpents, the lean arms of fate
Grope toward you through the blackness and the rain,
Then Death, and the obliterating snow....
A vase, red-wrought in Athens long ago.

Tours, 1918


VII - A WRECK

Survivor of an unknown past,
On this wild shore cast
By the sad desolate tides;
In a warm harbour long ago
They waited you, and waited long,
And guessed and feared at last,
But could not know.
Now in a language strange the waves make song,
And the flood surges round your broken sides,
And the ebb leaves you to the burning sun.
But when the voyage of my life is done,
And my soul puts forth no more,
Then may I sleep
Beneath the fathoms of the tideless deep,
And not be cast deserted on some dark alien shore.

Cape Cod, 1916