Why I no longer love thee?
Ask why summer has fled,
Thy autumn is dead with its garnet glow,
Why the sea is gray, and the sky is gray;
Why bitter gales o’er the salt flats blow,
Where the sea-fowl sport in ghoulish play
And the pods of the beach-pea stand withered
On the long-curved rifts of dream-torn sand;
Why the shore is scarred by time’s rough hand,
And ships that heel on wintry seas
Are wrecked on the ashen strand!
From Drifting Flowers of the Sea and Other Poems (1904) by Sadakichi Hartmann. This poem is in the public domain.