At A Seaside Town In 1869 - Young Lover's Reverie

I went and stood outside myself,      Spelled the dark sky      And ship-lights nigh,     And grumbling winds that passed thereby.     Then next inside myself I looked,      And there, above      All, shone my Love,     That nothing matched the image of.     Beyond myself again I ranged;      And saw the free      Life by the sea,     And folk indifferent to me.     O 'twas a charm to draw within      Thereafter, where      But she was; care     For one thing only, her hid there!     But so it chanced, without myself      I had to look,      And then I took     More heed of what I had long forsook:     The boats, the sands, the esplanade,      The laughing crowd;      Light-hearted, loud     Greetings from some not ill-endowed;     The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk,      Hailings and halts,      The keen sea-salts,     The band, the Morgenblatter Waltz.     Still, when at night I drew inside      Forward she came,      Sad, but the same     As when I first had known her name.     Then rose a time when, as by force,      Outwardly wooed      By contacts crude,     Her image in abeyance stood . . .     At last I said: This outside life      Shall not endure;      I'll seek the pure     Thought-world, and bask in her allure.     Myself again I crept within,      Scanned with keen care      The temple where     She'd shone, but could not find her there.     I sought and sought. But O her soul      Has not since thrown      Upon my own     One beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone.     From an old note.