When the red brands of day consume

And in the darkening Rhone illume

The still reflections of the reed,

I saw its passing leagues of gloom,

Torrential in their strength and speed,

Resisted by a rosy plume

That burned far down among the weed;

As in the dark of Tullia’s tomb

The frail wick-tethered phantom set

To watch, remember and regret,

Thawing faint tears to feed its fume

Of incense, spent in one long sigh

The centuries that thundered by

To battle, scooping huge moraines

Across the wreck of fifty reigns;

It held a candle to the eye

To show how much must pass and die

To set such scatheless phantoms free,

Or feather with one reed of rhyme

The boulder-rolling Rhone of time,

That rafts our ruin to the sea.