 | The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder |  |
ILLUSION
What strange, fond trick is this mine eyes are playing!I know 't is but the visioning mind perplexes,—
The inward sight the outer sense betraying,—
Yet the sweet lie the spirit wounds and vexes:
As at still midnight pondering here, and reading,
Right on the book's white page, and 'twixt the lines,
And wreathing through the words, and quick receding,
Only to come again (as 'mid the vines
The dryads flash and hide), white arms are gleaming,
A light hand hovers, curvèd lips are red,
Locks in a warm and soundless wind are streaming
Across the image of one glorious head;
No more,—no more,—shut now the volume lies
On that swift, piercing look, those haunting eyes.
| The Poems of Richard Watson Gilder | |