To ----

Ah, often do I wait and watch,     And look up, straining through the Real     With longing eyes, my friend, to catch     Faint glimpses of your white Ideal.     I know she loved to rest her feet     By slumbrous seas and hidden strand;     But mostly hints of her I meet     On moony spots of mountain land.     Ive never reached her shining place,     And only cross at times a gleam;     As one might pass a fleeting face     Just on the outside of a Dream.     But you may climb, her happy Choice!     She knows your step, the maiden true,     And ever when she hears your voice,     She turns and sits and waits for you.     How sweet to rest on breezy crest     With such a Love, what time the Morn     Looks from his halls of rosy rest,     Across green miles of gleaming corn!     How sweet to find a leafy nook,     When bees are out, and Day burns mute,     Where you may hear a passiond brook     Play past you, like a mellow flute!     Or, turning from the sunken sun,     On fields of dim delight to lie     To close your eyes and muse upon     The twilights strange divinity!     Or through the Nights mysterious noon,     While Sound lies hushed among the trees,     To sit and watch a mirrord moon     Float over silver-sleeping seas!     Oh, vain regret! why should I stay     To think and dream of joys unknown?     You walk with her from day to day,     I faint afar off and alone.