| |
| CLOSE on the edge of a midsummer dawn | |
| In troubled dreams I went from land to land, | |
| Each seven-colored like the rainbow’s arc, | |
| Regions where never fancy’s foot had trod | |
| Till then; yet all the strangeness seemed not strange, | 5 |
| At which I wondered, reasoning in my dream | |
| With two-fold sense, well knowing that I slept. | |
| At last I came to this our cloud-hung earth, | |
| And somewhere by the seashore was a grave, | |
| A woman’s grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers; | 10 |
| And near it stood an ancient holy man | |
| That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not | |
| For this unknown dead woman at my feet. | |
| But I, because his sacred office held | |
| My reverence, listened; and ’t was thus he spake: | 15 |
| “When next thou comest thou shalt find her still | |
| In all the rare perfection that she was. | |
| Thou shalt have gentle greeting of thy love! | |
| Her eyelids will have turned to violets, | |
| Her bosom to white lilies, and her breath | 20 |
| To roses. What is lovely never dies, | |
| But passes into other loveliness, | |
| Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower, or wingëd air. | |
| If this befalls our poor unworthy flesh, | |
| Think thee what destiny awaits the soul! | 25 |
| What glorious vesture it shall wear at last!” | |
| While yet he spoke, seashore and grave and priest | |
| Vanished, and faintly from a neighboring spire | |
| Fell five slow solemn strokes upon my ear. | |
| Then I awoke with a keen pain at heart, | 30 |
| A sense of swift unutterable loss, | |
| And through the darkness reached my hand to touch | |
| Her cheek, soft pillowed on one restful palm— | |
| To be quite sure! | |
| |
