She moved like silence swathed in light,
Like mists at morning clear;
A music that enamoured sight
Yet did elude the ear.
A rapture and a spirit clad
In motion soft as sleep;
The epitome of all things glad,
The sum of all that weep;
Her form was like a poet's mind--
By all sensations sought;
She seemed the substance of the wind,
The shape of lyric thought,--
A being 'mid terrestrial things
Transcendently forlorn,
From time bound far on filmy wings
For some diviner bourne.
The rhythms of the raptured heart
Swayed to her sweet control;
Life in her keeping all was art,
And all of body soul.
Lone-shimmering in the roseate air
She seemed to ebb and flow,
A memory, perilously fair,
And pale from long ago.
She stooped to time's remembered tears,
Yearned to undawned delight.
Ah beauty, passionate from the years!
Oh body wise and white!
She vanished like an evening cloud,
A sunset's radiant gleam.
She vanished ... Life awhile endowed
The darkness with a dream.