THE END OF THE SEASON—NANTUCKET

THE hotel building sees its doom, aghast, And all its windows fix in sullen stare, For no girl-voices ring on sunset air, And no bright-breasted youth goes speeding past. The latticed roses and the phlox have cast Their petals upon paths where lovers dreamed, And grey old streets, where gauzy figures streamed, Settle to lamp-lit quietness at last. Yet there is endless romance on the moor; The hawks o’er wine-red hollows stretch their wings, Wild ducks loop Autumnward in ranging strings, And swallows balance round time-silvered door; High looms the bluff in castle like contour, And wear the beach the full white breasts of dunes Nourish sky-silence, while the sea communes With shells, a-quiver to the foam’s allure.