Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Forms beyond my vision fleeting,
Shadowy phantoms, O how fair!
Let your shapes these eyes be meeting,
That would lure you down through air;
Unsubstantial as the moonlight
Or the sunshine, whence ye come,
Let your radiant shapes the noon light,
Be not to night's visions dumb!

O unseen, now floating o'er me,
Airy nothings, dawn to birth,
Grow to living words before me,
With a fairness not of earth;
On my mortal vision stealing,
O, ye hungered-for, descend,
To my love your charms revealing,
Loveliness no more to end!

Lo, my thoughts through unknown spaces
Strain their sight your forms to see,
Strive to gaze upon your faces,
All your beauty, yet to be;
O obey her weird dominion,
Fancy's, who should rule you here!
Glide to sight on noiseless pinion!
Softly, as sweet dreams, appear!

Mothers weary, at their bosoms
Fair, to feel the babes they'll bear;
Winters dream of coming blossoms,
And the Springs of harvests fair;
I, of you, for ever dreaming,
Weary for the sunny sight
Of your beauty, earthward streaming
On my eyes, ye shapes of light!

Ye will come; I feel ye near me;
Ye will gleam these eyes before;
Loved ones, ye at last will hear me,
And my weary watch be o'er;
In some golden hour before me,
Hour of leisure or of care,
Ye, who ever hover o'er me,
Ye will come, ye forms so fair.