Classic Poem

Strange wares are handled on the wharves of sleep:
— Shadows of shadows pass, and many a light
— Flashes a signal fire across the night;
Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen keep
Their way without a star upon the deep;
— And from lost ships, homing with ghostly crews,
— Come cries of incommunicable news,
While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white heap —
Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song,
Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient wrong,
— Nepenthes gathered from a secret strand,
Fardels of heartache, burdens of old sins,
Luggage sent down from dim ancestral inns,
— And bales of fantasy from No-Man's Land.