WITHOUT surcease of breath Her soul hath slipped its sheath, And walks among us, beautiful, unafraid, So mortal eyes may see How immortality Transcends all beauty that must fail and fade. Colours of air and flame, The glory whence she came, Yet float about her in our dusty sphere. Silence and rapture still Brought from the heavenly hill, Whence she hath travelled to our exile drear. Slight as a lance she is, And tall as Lent lilies, Aspiring like a flame in windless air, Incense and breath of spice, Kept from her Paradise, Haunt her from slender feet to ebon hair. Lingering and lovely voice— Lutes, dulcimers, hautboys— Her voice remembers how the music went, Still holds the rise and fall, The sob ecstatical, Of some most heavenly-sweet wind instrument. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NAMING FOR LOVE by HAYDEN CARRUTH SONG:SO WHY DOES THIS DEAD CARNATION by HAYDEN CARRUTH THE FLAME LIGHTS UP by DAVID IGNATOW SONNET TO THOSE WHO SEE BUT DARKLY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON FREE FANTASIA ON JAPANESE THEMES by AMY LOWELL DOMESDAY BOOK: MRS. MURRAY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS A FOOL, A FOUL THING, A DISTRESSFUL LUNATIC by MARIANNE MOORE |