THE INDIAN GIRL.

She standeth silent as a thought

Too sacred to be uttered; all

Her face unfurling like a flower

That at a breath too near will shut.

Her life a little golden clock

Whose shining hands, arrested, stay

Forever at the hour of Love.

She doubts, she dares, she dreams — of what?

I ask; she, shrinking, answers not,

She swims before me, dim, a cup

Of waste, untasted tenderness.

I drink, I dread, until I seem

( Myself unto myself ) to be

He whom she chose, and charmed — and missed,

On some faint Asiatic day

Of languorous summer, ages since.