Thy form seems moulded in thy soul's own grace—
Adapted to express each subtile thought—
So fair and lucid is thy lily face,
Thy motion with such witchery is fraught.
There is so much in every act of thine,
That tells thy soul keepeth an angel guard,
Their glorious wings do almost seem to shine
A heavenly halo round their lovely ward.
Alas! when I do gaze on thee, my spirit
Longeth for Paradise, and vaguely dreams,
Wondering if there itself will not inherit
Some of such brightness as around thee beams:
Surely the music, and the unfading flowers,
And forms of light that walk the courts of heaven,
Do fill thy visions in thy musing hours,
So that to thee their semblance has been given.
TO EDITH MAY.
I have not seen thee, Edith May; they say thy face is fair—
But I know thy soul, that is not seen, and know it high and rare;
And I love thee by a sign that's given to every poet soul—
That spirit-linking sympathy beyond our own control.
There is a lyre within my heart as there is one in thine,
But a plaintive, low-voiced, murmuring thing is this frail lyre of mine;
Not grand, and wild, and proudly toned, yet scorning mirth withal,
Like the harps our fancy hears at times in some old knightly hall;
But softly glad and wildly sad, with a thousand nameless strings
That wake, as doth the rose-leaf wake, to the breath of unseen things.
