190
THREE SUNSETS.
The summer fled: the lonely man
Still lingered out the lessening days;
Still, as the night drew on, would scan
Each passing face with closer gaze—
Till, sick at heart, he turned away,
And sighed "she will not come to-day."
So by degrees his spirit bent
To mock its own despairing cry,
In strange self-torture to invent
New luxuries of agony,
And people all the vacant space
With visions of her perfect face:
Till for a moment she was nigh,
He heard no step, but she was there;
As if an angel suddenly
Were bodied from the viewless air,
And all her fine ethereal frame
Should fade as strangely as it came.
