VISITORS

THEY haunt me, they tease me with hinted

Withheld revelations,

The songs that I may not utter;

They lead me, they flatter, they woo me.

I follow, I follow, I snatch

At the veils of their secrets in vain —

For lo! they have left me and vanished,

The songs that I cannot sing.

There are visions elusive that come

With a quiver and shimmer of wings;—

Shapes shadows and shapes, and the murmur

Of voices;—

Shapes, that out of the twilight

Leap, and with gesture appealing

Seem to deliver a message,

And are gone‘ twixt a breath and a breath;—

Shapes that race in with the waves

Moving silverly under the moon,

And are gone ere they break into foam on the rocks

And recede;—

Breathings of love from invisible

Flutes,

Blown somewhere out in the tender

Dusk,

That die on the bosom of Silence;—

Formless,

And fleeter than thought,

Vaguer than thought or emotion,

What are these visitors?

Out of the vast and uncharted

Realms that encircle the visible world,

With a glimmer of light on their pinions,

They rush...

They waver, they vanish,

Leaving me stirred with a dream of the ultimate beauty,

A sense of the ultimate music,

I never shall capture;—

They are Beauty,

Formless and tremulous Beauty,

Beauty unborn;

Beauty as yet unappareled

In thought;

Beauty that hesitates,

Falters,

Withdraws from the verge of birth,

Flutters,

Retreats from the portals of life;—

O Beauty for ever uncaptured!

O songs that I never shall sing!