 | Songs of the sea, with other poems |  |
34
XII.
TO EGERIA.
The flying wave reflects thy angel face,But soon the liquid mirror breaks in foam;
The severing cloud reveals thy form of grace,
And then thou'rt standing in thy fittest home;
A drifted vapor hides thy maiden shape—
Ocean and sky are all the gazer sees;
But, while he murmurs at thy swift escape,
He starts to hear thy whisper in the breeze.
Capricious phantom! why within my heart
Create the void of beauty and of love?
A spirit tells me, coy one, who thou art,—
Heard in the gale, or shadowed forth above—
The bright prefigurement of her who waits,
With snow-white veil and wreath, beside the Future's gates!
| Songs of the sea, with other poems | |