Inspiration
At nightfall when the shadows vaguely creep, And fancy wingeth forth upon the hours,Then quickly from her sweet reposing sleep, A cautious maiden rises from the flowers.
The twilight shades are woven in her hair, Her eyes are dark and brilliant as the night,No vagrant leaflet in its fall could dare' To touch her satin throat of gleaming white.
Her lips have robbed the glory of the sun, As paling fire, it sank into the sea;Her cheeks are cold, unearthly—from the moon She gathers weird and nameless ecstasy.
Her robe, bejeweled with the silver dew, Clings close about her with a careless grace,And in the moving shadows, filtered through, The moonbeams seek the beauty of her face.
She knows no fret, or years of doubt or fear, No disillusioned dreaming or regret,Incarnate youth, she speaks the voice of spring, And soothes the aching senses to forget.
Elusive, frail—she lightly sped her way, I blindly followed where she beckoned me,And to the East, upon the breaking day, I found her but the soul of poesy.
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