Marooned

Cloud-ships drifting near me pass
Dragging ghost-anchors on the grass,
Laden with snow and ice and gold,
Their crews, abstractions faint and old,
Postured against the violet air
In act of drinking or of song,
I saw, lying upon a hill
In Summer's bowl clear, huge and still.

Deep-drowned, knee-bent I lie and gaze
On keels that shade celestial bays:
No bronze-cut waves, no rippling swell
Stirs where the crews' carved faces dwell.
Upon some siren-land of song
Their eyes as sightless statues stare
All treasury of mortal care
Abandoned as they sail along.

When day sank in the Western sky
No breast among them heaved a sigh;
But as I looked I saw a glaze
Of gold upon their raptured gaze;
And all those billowing sails of snow
In stillness carved no longer blow
Each stiff ship motionless as its crew.

All marble and becalmed they lay
Gigantic in the gulf of day.
Then out of space a chill wind flew
And in the sky cold empty air
Startled my strained eyes everywhere.
Those ships and mariners had gone.
Stunned like a bright-fleshed Angel thrown,
On the dark earth I sprawled alone.