The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder :: :: University of Virginia Library

VISIONS

I

Cast into the pit
Of lonely sorrow,
The suffering soul,
Looking aloft,
Sees with amaze
In the daytime sky
The shine of stars.

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II

Came to him once
In the seething town
A form of beauty,
Innocent brow,
And soul of youth;
Deep, sweet eyes,
An angel's gaze,
And rose-leaf lips
That murmured low:
“I, lost, forgotten,
Long left, long dead,
I am thy sin.”

III

With full-toned beat
Of the happy heart,
In a day of peace,
In an hour of joy,
Once in my life
And only once,
Of a sudden, I saw,
The end of all!
—Death!