The once-flashed beauty borne on a breaking wave
Dies to a requiem sung on the sounding shore;
Beyond all reach of mortal power to save
In spray-crowned glory it passes for evermore.
Would that the heart could capture and hold and keep
The glory of beauty, sped in a moment's space!
Could fix for ever the splendour and strength and sweep
Of the wind-wild wave, in its riotous rapturous race!
Brave brief hopes, are you not sped as the wave —
Sped to a requiem sighed on a wreck-strewn shore?
While memory murmurs in dreams that you once were brave,
And sadness softly sighs that you are no more.