A Country's Ghost

Some long dead Country's Ghost it surely is
Which haunts these Western waters, — strange and
bright
With dazzling gold of the sun's setting light:
Fair hills and fields it shows, but more than this
We may not know, since all its bane and bliss
Lie hidden in its cities out of sight, —
Strange cities, haply wrapt in sleep and night,

Where phantom lovers come again to kiss:
Or Ghosts of weary men by stealth come back
To climb the silent by-ways noiselessly, —
Those ancient ways which no more dream of change,
Where still, I think, dead with their dead must range —
Ghost! seen a moment in the low sun's track.
Now hidden again in the concealing sea.