Fragment

I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night     Under a cloudy moonless sky; and peeped     In at the windows, watched my friends at table,     In the windows, watched my friends at table,     Or playing cards, or standing in the doorway,     Or coming out into the darkness. Still     No one could see me.     I would have thought of them         Heedless, within a week of battle, in pity,     Pride in their strength and in the weight and firmness     And link'd beauty of bodies, and pity that     This gay machine of splendour 'ld soon be broken,     Thought little of, pashed, scattered, . . .         Only, always,     I could but see them, against the lamplight--pass     Like coloured shadows, thinner than filmy glass,     Slight bubbles, fainter than the wave's faint light,     That broke to phosphorus out in the night,     Perishing things and strange ghosts, soon to die     To other ghosts, this one, or that or I.