In silence now,

the reddening dusk passes

Eternity gilds the walls

with the fading hues

of sunset.

In a warm autumn wind,

the leaves spiral on

in abandoned arcades,

while unabating rays fall from the sky,

The sun, pale and weak,

yearns to breathe

life into the dead and gone,

yet its light falters before the fallen,

monotonous and feeble in its reach.

Vines climb the wrecked walls,

the broken ramparts

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of a decaying dream,

and over the garden paths,

ghosts breathe their lost wishes,

and implicated in rumours

of entwining grey,

clinging to the earth,

the mists of muffled light

and hopes undone.

In the echoes of this place, they offer

twilight-tossed whispers in the wind

Of love and pain in wayward lands,

ere they fade into the gentle oblivion

of being forgotten.

This abandoned land is

peopled only

By flocks of finches singing

gentle songs, a peaceful dirge

in a ruinous palace,

bathed in fading crimson flares.