AT A SEASIDE TOWN IN 1869

I went and stood outside myself,

Spelled the dark sky

And ship-lights nigh,

And grumbling winds that passed thereby.

Then next inside myself I looked,

And there, above

All, shone my Love,

That nothing matched the image of.

Beyond myself again I ranged;

And saw the free

Life by the sea,

And folk indifferent to me.

O‘ twas a charm to draw within

Thereafter, where

But she was; care

For one thing only, her hid there!

But so it chanced, without myself

I had to look,

And then I took

More heed of what I had long forsook:

The boats, the sands, the esplanade,

The laughing crowd;

Light-hearted, loud

Greetings from some not ill-endowed;

The evening sunlit cliffs, the talk,

Hailings and halts,

The keen sea-salts,

The band, the Morgenblatter Waltz.

Still, when at night I drew inside

Forward she came,

Sad, but the same

As when I first had known her name.

Then rose a time when, as by force,

Outwardly wooed

By contacts crude,

Her image in abeyance stood...

At last I said: This outside life

Shall not endure;

I'll seek the pure

Thought-world, and bask in her allure.

Myself again I crept within,

Scanned with keen care

The temple where

She'd shone, but could not find her there.

I sought and sought. But O her soul

Has not since thrown

Upon my own

One beam! Yea, she is gone, is gone.