XXIX. Nostalgia

Once every year, in autumn’s wistful glow,

The birds fly out over an ocean waste,

Calling and chattering in a joyous haste

To reach some land their inner memories know.

Great terraced gardens where bright blossoms blow,

And lines of mangoes luscious to the taste,

And temple-groves with branches interlaced

Over cool paths — all these their vague dreams show.

 

They search the sea for marks of their old shore —

For the tall city, white and turreted —

But only empty waters stretch ahead,

So that at last they turn away once more.

Yet sunken deep where alien polyps throng,

The old towers miss their lost, remembered song.