The Glory

There in the past I see her as of old,

Blue-eyed and hazel-haired, within a room

Dim with a twilight of tenebrious gold;

Her white face sensuous as a delicate bloom

Night opens in the tropics. Fold on fold

Pale laces drape her; and a frail perfume,

As of a moonlit primrose brimmed with rain,

Breathes from her presence, drowsing heart and brain.

Her head is bent; some red carnations glow

Deep in her heavy hair; her large eyes gleam;—

Bright sister stars of those twin worlds of snow,

Her breasts, through which the veined violets stream;—

I hold her hand; her smile comes sweetly slow

As thoughts of love that haunt a poet's dream;

And at her feet once more I sit and hear

Wild words of passion — dead this many a year.