CELESTINE.
I. I must not look on you nor think of you,— Must seek close kinship with forgetfulness; Such looks as thine but make a strong man rue That ever in his heart’s devout excess The shadow of thy soul he did pursue Through many a golden hour for one caress; ’Twas but a noontide dream, A phantom fire, a gleam Of heaven wasted in a wilderness.
II. I wake and wonder at the vision gone, Sweet music borne upon a winter blast, A beauty filched from sunset and the dawn, A marvel too ethereal to last; And now a heavy sadness falls upon My spirit and the world, both overcast With thunderstorm and gloom, In which there is no room For any ray of the enchanted past.
III. I chide the fond delirium of my brow, And only pray that you forgive, forget The homage of a man who doth avow His folly with a penitent’s regret; Such adoration even the gods allow, For thou art as a star divinely set In heaven’s perfect blue, I can but sigh for you In lonely ways with night dews chilled and wet.