The shadow hands repeating every motion.
Then did I voyage forth on music's ocean,
Visiting many a sad or joyful shore,
Where storming breakers roar,
Or singing birds made music so intense,—
So intimate of happiness or sorrow,—
I scarce could courage borrow
To hear those strains: well-nigh I hurried thence
To escape the intolerable weight
That on my spirit fell when sobbed the music: late, too late, too late!
While slow withdrew the light
And, on the lyric tide, came in the night.
II
So grew the dark, enshrouding all the room
In a melodious gloom,
Her face growing viewless; line by line
That swaying form did momently decline
And was in darkness lost.
Then white hands ghostly turned, tho' still they tost
From tone to tone; pauseless and sure as if in perfect light;
With blind, instinctive, most miraculous sight,
On, on they sounded in that world of night.
III
Ah, dearest one; was this thy thought, as mine,
As still the music stayed?
"So shall the loved ones fade,—
Feature by feature, line on lovely line;
For all our love, alas,
From twilight into darkness shall they pass!
