Yet one shape that I never can forget
Waved a wild sceptre at me, ruling yet
An empire gone where all empires must go,
Melting away as simply as the snow;
Yet no one heeded the flower of his menace,
As little heeded him as that One Face
That suddenly I saw go wandering by,
And saying as she went—­“I—­still—­am—­I!”

And the dry bones thereat
Rattled together, laughing, gossipping
Together in the gloom
That dared not sing,
The little trivial gossip of the tomb—­
Ah! just as long ago, in their dry way,
They mocked at fairy faces and strong eyes
That of their foolish loving make us wise.

Paris:  May, 1913.

A FACE IN A BOOK

In an old book I found her face
  Writ by a dead man long ago—­
I found, and then I lost the place;
  So nothing but her face I know,
  And her soft name writ fair below.

Even if she lived I cannot learn,
  Or but a dead man’s dream she were;
Page after yellow page I turn,
  But cannot come again to her,
  Although I know she must be there.

On other books of other men,
  Far in the night, year-long, I pore,
Hoping to find her face again,
  Too fair a face to see no more—­
  And ’twas so soft a name she bore.

Sometimes I think the book was Youth,
  And the dead man that wrote it I,
The face was Beauty, the name Truth—­
  And thus, with an unseeing eye,
  I pass the long-sought image by.

TIME, BEAUTY’S FRIEND

“Is she still beautiful?” I asked of one
  Who of the unforgotten faces told
That for long years I had not looked upon—­
  “Beautiful still—­but she is growing old”;
And for a space I sorrowed, thinking on
  That face of April gold.

Then up the summer night the moon arose,
  Glassing her sacred beauty in the sea,
That ever at her feet in silver flows;
  And with her rising came a thought to me—­
How ever old and ever young she grows,
  And still more lovely she.

Thereat I smiled, thinking on lovely things
  That dateless and immortal beauty wear,
Whereof the song immortal tireless sings,
  And Time but touches to make lovelier;
On Beauty sempiternal as the Spring’s—­
  So old are all things fair.

Then for that face I cast aside my fears,
  For changing Time is Beauty’s changeless friend,
That never reaches but for ever nears,
  Tireless the old perfections to transcend,
Fairness more fair to fashion with the years,
  And loveliest to end.

YOUNG LOVE

Young love, all rainbows in the lane,
  Brushed by the honeysuckle vines,
Scattered the wild rose in a dream: 
  A sweeter thing his arm entwines.

Ah, redder lips than any rose! 
  Ah, sweeter breath than any bee
Sucks from the heart of any flower;
  Ah, bosom like the Summer sea!