Out of the silence of dead years Your slender presence seems to move-- A fragrance that no time outwears-- A perilous messenger of love.
From far your wistful beauty brings A wonder that no lips may speak-- A music dumb save as it clings About your shadowy throat and cheek.
Longing is round you like that haze Of luminous and tender glow Which memory in the later days Gives vanished days of long ago.
And he who sees you must retrace All sweetness that his life has known, And with the vision of your face Link some lost vision of his own.
The long curves of your saffron dress-- The outline of your delicate mould-- Your strange unearthly slenderness Seem like a wraith's that strayed of old
Out of some region where abide Fortunate spirits without stain, Where nothing lovely is denied, And pain is only beauty's pain.
Strange! that in life you were a thing Common to many for delight, Thrall to the revelries that fling Their gleam across the fevered night--
A holy image in the grasp Of pagans careless to adore; A pearl secreted in the clasp Of oozy weeds on some lost shore.
My thought shrinks back from what I see, And wanders dumb in poisoned air-- Then leaps, inexplicably free, Remembering that you were fair!
Belovèd were you in your prime By one, of all, who came as guest,-- A wastrel strange, whose gaze could climb To where your beauty lit the west.
One,--in whose secret heart there moved Some far and unforgotten stir Of ancient, holy beauties loved,-- Here paused, a sudden worshipper.
Methinks he moved in dusks apart Through that profound and trembling hour When you within his doubting heart Touched all the desert into flower.
And where you rose a world's delight, For him the dark veils from you fell,-- As earthly clouds from star-strewn night Withdraw, and leave a miracle.
Not Oiran then, but maid; remote From tyrant powers of waste desire. Who drew these hands, this slender throat, Saw you 'mid skaken winds of fire.
You were a shape of wonder, set To crown the seeking of his days. For you his lonely eyes were wet; With you his soul walked shrouded ways.
And though the burning night might keep You servient to some lord's carouse, For him you rose from such a deep With maiden dawn-light on your brows.