Poems: Second Series :: :: University of Virginia Library

When shall I see thee, Dearest! as thou art?
My light of life! My guiding star! My goal!
Mistress of all the pulsings of my heart!
The yearnings of my soul!

Queen of the hopes, the prayers that burn in me!
Fair nymph of earth! Pure angel from above!
Vision of beauty!—while it dreamed of thee—
My soul awoke to love.

When shall I see thee — not as now I watch
A phantom form that beckons and is gone
Far down the avenue of years, or catch
One glimpse that lures me on?

For still I follow my imperious fate,
As when of old, heart-whole, and fancy free,
I vowed for evermore to consecrate
My spirit's depths to thee.

Yet as a bee, that flits from flower to flower,
To sip from each the honey of its kiss,
So have I courted for the passing hour
Some form of transient bliss.

But light of wing the rover bee has flown:
The sweets whereon he feasted fade forgot:
Fickle or false to these—to thee alone,
My Queen! I faltered not.

What if each charm beguiled me in its turn—
'Twas that each glimpse of glory or of grace
Whispered of thee, and I aspired to learn
Of each thy hiding-place.

For I believed that in each rainbow hue
I saw the dazzle of thy whiteness shine:
And all the gleams of beauty that I knew
Lived in revealing thine.

The hedgerow flowers, the poppies in the corn
Were twined about thy tresses—such my faith:
The fragrant freshness of the early morn
Breathed perfume of thy breath.

And every sound that swept my soul along
In waves of rapture, was a voice from thee—
The skylark's airy ecstasy of song—
The thunder of the sea.

And when—the storm clouds past—on blade and leaf
Fresh raindrops sparkled in the sudden glow,
I guessed that if thy soul could melt in grief,
Its tears would sparkle so.

And in the golden mist divinely bright,
Whose loveliness throbbed through the evening air
On sea and hill,—I saw the floating light,
The lit waves of thy hair.

Or if the purple of the sunset turned
The distant river to a rosy streak,
Methought thy beauty over-conscious burned
In blushes on thy cheek.

But ever, as I sought for thee in these,
I disenchanted each of its true charm,
That vanished, as the fairy moonlight flees
The daybreak in alarm.

The flowers drooped dead: the fragrance passed away:
Sweet sounds were hushed: the raindrops lost their light:
The gold, the purple of the setting day
Died into clouds of night.

And so I lost, because I loved so well
That love was thirst for a diviner love;
For things of earth must ever lose their spell,
That tell of things above.

All shapes, all tints that feed our hearts on bliss,
All moments of delight are thine, and thou
Hidden in each dost breathe an angel's kiss
On each unconscious brow.

But if desire to see thee face to face
Dawn on our hearts, those passing charms decay,
And, like a phantom from its lurking place,
Thy presence fades away.

For this—to know that thou art hiding there,
Veiled by thy very splendour from our eyes—
Turns our delight into an aching prayer,
Our laughter into sighs.

And though the veil be thin as sunlit rain,
Or bridal gauze that flutters snowy white,
Yet if we lift it overquick, we gain
Not thee—but empty night.

And once a bosom trembled against mine,
And dark eyes hid their beauty in a mist
Of overbrimming love: I thought that thine
Shone through them, and I kissed

With burning lips their brightness till they closed
Their lustre-fringèd lids, and kissed the brow
And coiling tresses till the head reposed
In ecstasy:—'twas thou!

Fond dream—but she, forgotten as I dreamed,
Waned from my arms into the empty air,
And on the darkness for an instant gleamed
The ripples of her hair.

And in their sunlit loveliness I knew
Thee, the enchantress, fading into gloom—
Revealed and hidden to bemock the view,—
My blessing and my doom.

For such thy wont: as each new change of form
Uplifts the transient veil thy features wore,
Swift, as the lightning streak against the storm,
Thou art and art no more.

Ah! then the nearness of the light that waned
Deepened the gloom that circled me forlorn,
And in thy stead a mocking voice remained
That laughed in bitter scorn:

“Oh fool! to deem that beauty the disguise
Of visionary charms that slept in her,—
Could not the dreamy splendours of her eyes
Content thee as they were?

Not as the shadows of a hidden fire,
But in themselves as stars of love and light:—
So had they deepened to thy soul's desire
And been for ever bright.

Dupe of thine aspirations! did it seem
So slight a thing that throbbing human breast,
That thou couldst lose it for this airy dream,
This endless empty quest?”

Not thine the voice that mocked me while I sighed,
And not in vain through all the rolling years
Do I pursue thee, though the world deride
My yearnings and my tears.

For light is breaking, light whose first dawn shews
Only the dappled cloudlets grey and cold,—
But even now about the Orient grows
A warmth, a tinge of gold.

And is it that thy beauty flits before,
Eastward and eastward to the springs of day,
And so for me who follow, more and more
The night mists melt away?

Or—for at times the lightning of this thought
Flashes upon my vision—can it be
That all this seeking is the treasure sought,—
And thou this love of thee?

This parching thirst itself the hanging fruit—
This cruel strife the prize for which I bled—
The fever of this infinite pursuit
The phantom form that fled?

And is the sea, to which all rivers roll,
The fountain head wherein their waves begin?
Thyself the hidden firesprings of the soul—
The light that burns within?

Then all this dawn of day is thy creation;
My yearning is the thrill of thy embrace;
And in the dream, the hope, the aspiration
I see thee face to face.