I watched you in the distance tall and pale,
Like a swift swallow in a pearly sky;
Your eyelids drooped like petals wearily,
Your face was like a lily of the vale.
You had the softness of all Summer days,
The silver radiance of the twilight hour,
The mystery of bluebell-haunted ways,
The passion of the white syringa’s flower.
I watched you, and I knew that I had found
The long-delaying, long-expected Spring;
I knew my heart had found a tune to sing;
That strength to soar was in my spirit’s wing;
That life was full of a triumphant sound,
That death could only be a little thing.
Ω Κάλα, ὧ χαρίεσσα
I saw you by the Summer candlelight:--
You put to shame the sparkle of the gems,
The lights, the flashing of the diadems,
The moon and all the stars of Summer night.
I saw you in the radiant morning hour:--
You put to shame the white rose and the red;
Your chiselled lips, your little lovely head,
Were fairer than the petals of a flower.
And on the shaven surface of the lawn,
You moved like music, and you smiled like dawn,--
The leaves, the flowers, the dragon-flies, the dew,
Beside you seemed the stuff of coarser clay;
And all the glory of the Summer day
A background for the wonder that was you.