What had they done to you, that dumbly so You covered with your hands your quiet face-- Dear, out of kindness, that I might not know What horror there had wrought its dark disgrace! It was those hands, too passionately, too well Loved, that betrayed you--O most piteous guest! And to my heart, in the intolerable Rage of despair, that shadow I had pressed, Mingling in a shrill cry our grief supreme-- My sweet--my pretty! But, as I had drawn That anguish to my arms, they clasped a dream; And heaven glimmered with the approaching dawn. PHANTOM Along the edge of the great, moving sea-- That moaned forever on her barren bars, The old, sad love came back again to me, Moving quietly under the quiet stars. O sad love, do not smile upon me so, Nodding so gently with your little head-- All the old wonder of your eyes is dead, And the sea-winds have chilled you long ago! LEGEND Where are you hid from me, belovèd one That I am seeking through the lonely world-- A wanderer, on my way home to you? Dark is the night and perilous the road: At many a breast in longing have I leaned, At many a wayside worshipped; and my heart Is tired from long travelling. Perhaps In centuries to come you wait for me, And are as yet an iris by the stream Lifting her single blossom, or the faint Tremulous haze upon the hills--and we Have missed each other. O if it be so, Then may this song reach to the verge of doom-- Ages unborn--to find you where you are, My lonely one; and like a murmuring string, Faint with one music, endlessly repeat To you, not even knowing I was yours, Her plaintive burden from the dolorous past: Telling of one upon a hopeless quest-- How in the dark of Time he lost his way! IV THE DIVINE FANTASY Brother, from what dim world of lonely light, Trembling on heaven’s pinnacles to-night, Is lifted your sad face of love while you Stare upward toward me, staring upward, too, At that faint flame which is your home, between The leafy branches of these poplars seen-- So hushed, so far! Perhaps to-night you scan Your starry heaven for the star of Man, High in the trellis of eternity And glittering arches hung; perhaps like me You, too, look up and wonder. Is it fair, That world of yours? Are there great cities there, Populous millions, hearts that beat as these, Clear meadows and far mountains, shoreless seas, Shadows of moving armies, thrones that shake? Does the heart thrill for love there, does it break-- Tell me, are there hushed gardens, quiet tombs? And mighty poets weaving at their looms The old, dim wisdoms that outweary Time; And saints, and lifted saviours, and sublime Faiths and high fortitudes beyond belief? --All blotted out by one small poplar leaf In the light wind of languid summer stirred!