Ah--it's the skeleton of a lady's sunshade
Here at my feet in the hard rock's chink
Merely a naked sheaf of wires! -
Twenty years have gone with their livers and diers
Since it was silked in its white or pink

Noonshine riddles the ribs of the sunshade
No more a screen from the weakest ray;
Nothing to tell us the hue of its dyes
Nothing but rusty bones as it lies
In its coffin of stone, unseen till to-day

Where is the woman who carried that sun-shadе
Up and down this seaside place? -
Littlе thumb standing against its stem
Thoughts perhaps bent on a love-stratagem
Softening yet more the already soft face!

Is the fair woman who carried that sunshade
A skeleton just as her property is
Laid in the chink that none may scan?
And does she regret--if regret dust can -
The vain things thought when she flourished this?