Wilt thou never come again, Beauteous one? Yet the woods are green and dim, Yet the birds' deluding cry Echoes in the hollow sky, Yet the falling waters brim The clear pool which thou wast fain To paint thy lovely cheek upon, Beauteous one! I may see the thorny rose Stir and wake The dark dewdrop on her gold; But thy secret will she keep Half divulged -- yet all untold, Since a child's heart woke from sleep. The faltering sunbeam fades and goes; The night-bird whistles in the brake; The willows quake; Utter quiet falls; the wind Sighs no more. Yet it seems the silence yearns But to catch thy fleeting foot; Yet the wandering glow-worm burns Lest her lamp should light thee not -- Thee whom I shall never find; Though thy shadow lean before, Thou thyself return'st no more -- Never more. All the world's woods, tree o'er tree, Come to nought. Birds, flowers, beasts, how transient they, Angels of a flying day. Love is quenched; dreams drown in sleep; Ruin nods along the deep: Only thou immortally Hauntest on This poor earth in Time's flux caught; Hauntest on, pursued, unwon, Phantom child of memory, Beauteous one! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON THE WAY (PHILADELPHIA, 1794) by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON A GOODNIGHT by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS THE SHRUBBERY, WRITTEN IN A TIME OF AFFLICTION by WILLIAM COWPER A DIRGE (1) by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS THE STARLIGHT NIGHT by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS SONNET: FOR INSPIRATION by MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI MONNA INNOMINATA, A SONNET OF SONNETS: 6 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI |