Erotica/A Reflection

by Arthur Clark Kennedy

For works with similar titles, see Reflection.

A Reflection

Holding a mirror in an idle hand,I chanced to breath thereon,When through the film there gleamedA sudden face that seemedHers I had made my ownOnce in that far-off sunny stranger land,

Once, and once only, had I held her, kissedHer eyes that through her hairShone starlike, lit with heatFrom fires that throbbed and beatIn her brown bosom bare,Long blanch'd since then beneath Time's nether mist.

I had not thought of her for years on years,Nor thought I of her whenI breathed, and brought her backDown memory's vagrant track,Sweet even now as then,But seen, alas, through blurring haze of tears

That sprang unbidden to my startled eyes,When that face on my gazeBurned sudden-wise, and IBent down with a great cry,As in those far-off daysI bent to her red mouth 'neath alien skies.

Though the film fading from the surface glassBanished her from my mind,It left a sharp regretThat rankles even yetImplanted there behind,For that lost day, regret that will not pass.