Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose. But she? Awed, Charmed to tears, Distracted, Yet-- Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued--who knows? THE PIER-GLASS (_To T. E. Lawrence, who helped me with it_) Lost manor where I walk continually A ghost, while yet in woman's flesh and blood. Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers And gliding steadfast down your corridors I come by nightly custom to this room, And even on sultry afternoons I come Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory. Empty, unless for a huge bed of state Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry (A puppet theatre where malignant fancy Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness To summon me from attic glooms above Service of elder ghosts; here at my left A sullen pier-glass cracked from side to side Scorns to present the face as do new mirrors With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors. Is here no life, nothing but the thin shadow And blank foreboding, never a wainscote rat Rasping a crust? Or at the window pane No fly, no bluebottle, no starveling spider? The windows frame a prospect of cold skies Half-merged with sea, as at the first creation, Abstract, confusing welter. Face about, Peer rather in the glass once more, take note Of self, the grey lips and long hair dishevelled, Sleep-staring eyes. Ah, mirror, for Christ's love Give me one token that there still abides Remote, beyond this island mystery So be it only this side Hope, somewhere, In streams, on sun-warm mountain pasturage, True life, natural breath; not this phantasma.