A FACE IN A BOOK

In an old book I found her face

Writ by a dead man long ago —

I found, and then I lost the place;

So nothing but her face I know,

And her soft name writ fair below.

Even if she lived I cannot learn,

Or but a dead man's dream she were;

Page after yellow page I turn,

But cannot come again to her,

Although I know she must be there.

On other books of other men,

Far in the night, year-long, I pore,

Hoping to find her face again,

Too fair a face to see no more —

And‘ twas so soft a name she bore.

Sometimes I think the book was Youth,

And the dead man that wrote it I,

The face was Beauty, the name Truth —

And thus, with an unseeing eye,

I pass the long-sought image by.