Alone by the Bay

He is gone. O my heart, he is gone;
And the sea remains and the sky,
And the skiffs flit in and out,
And the white-winged yachts go by.

The waves run purple and green,
And the sunshine glints and glows,
And freshly across the Bay
The breath of the morning blows.

Ah, it was better last night,
When the dark shut down on the main,
And the phantom fleet lay still,
And I heard the waves complain;

For the sadness that dwells in my heart,
And the rune of their endless woe,—
Their longing and void and despair,—
Kept time in their ebb and flow.