A Portrait

LIKE the sway of the silver birch in the breeze of dawn

        Is her dainty way;

Like the gray of a twilight sky or a starlit lawn

        Are her eyes of gray;

Like the clouds in their moving white

        Is her breast's soft stir;

And white as the moon and bright

        Is the soul of her.

Like murmur of woods in spring ere the leaves be green,

        Like the voice of a bird

That sings by a stream that sings through the night unseen,

        So her voice is heard.

And the secret her eyes withhold

        In my soul abides,

For white as the moon and cold

        Is the heart she hides.