“A cloud, small, serene, floated across the moon. In that moment of darkness the sea sounded deep, troubled. Then as the cloud sailed away, and the sound of the sea was a vague murmur, as though it waked out of a dark dream. All was still.”

          Katherine Mansfield, At the Bay 

We saw the last embers of daylight die
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time’s waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years

 W.B. Yeats

 

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Théophile Gautier, from the Comedy of death

I have returned from the land of ghosts,
But still, I maintain the pale shade of the dead
Far away from silent kingdoms
My clothes resemble a funeral dress
On an urn, thrown from my back to the ground
Hanging along my body.
I come from the hands of a death
More miserly than the one who wept at the tomb of Lazarus;
She looks after her keep:
She releases the body, but retains the soul;
She renders the torch, but fans the flame;
And Christ would have no say.
But Alas! I am no more than a shadow of my former self,
A living tomb where lies all that I love,
Survived only by myself;
With me, I carry iced mortal remains
Of my illusions, charming and passed away
Of which I am the shroud.
I am still too young; I want to love and to live,
O death, I can’t bring myself to follow you
On your somber path;
I haven’t had the time to build the column
Where glory will come to suspend my crown;
O death, come back tomorrow!