MOONFLOWERS

These frail, white blooms have lit the Summer night

Like ghosts of beauty that had gone too soon,—

With something less than any glimmering light

That sways and faints and trembles in the moon.

I think the Earth, grown half-regretful, now,

Of faces that were lovely of old time,

Lifts here again dim hands and hair and brow,

In loveliness more fragile than a rhyme.

So that the listening night has somehow learned

A way of prescient waiting through the dark,

For half-forgotten loveliness returned,—

Too frail and dim for eyes like ours to mark

More than a ghostly glimmer on the air,

That once was lighted brows and hands and hair.