from what idea of grace had they strayed?

One summer when he was still young he stood at the window
and wondered where they had gone, those women who sat by
the ocean, watching, waiting for something that would never
arrive, the wind light against their skin, sending loose strands
of hair across their lips. From what season had they fallen, from
what idea of grace had they strayed? It was long since he had
seen them in their lonely splendor, heavy in their idleness, en-
acting the sad story of hope abandoned. This was the summer
he wandered out into the miraculous night, into the sea of
dark, as if for the first time, to shed his own light, but what he
shed was the dark, what he found was the night.

[Mark Strand {1934-2014}, 'The Buried Melancholy of the Poet' from Almost Invisible]