A Damsel in Imagination, Love.

 

Sprinkle it with a water's mist

   That clouds about the head,

And let its skin be over kissed

   With soothing in its stead.

Above be taken into air,

   Imagination soar,

And see that everything is fair,

   And nothing rich or poor.

 

To feel the things we are and play

   Inside what is without,

Is so to feel as softened clay

   The impress of a pout.

So love is like a priestess, soft

   An hymning in the wild;

And singing to her God aloft

   Is beauty's holy child.

She witches in the soul of night,

   And cares not for the lights

Which take the toiling men of fright,

   And moves with all the sprites.

She tells no ayes nor noes but sighs

   And dances in a cloud,

That pours in love upon her eyes,

   And masques her in a shroud;

 

Then disappears away from view,

   And none can tell whence left

The damsel to, that all men knew,

   And now are all bereft:

She went like gypsies caravan

   Between the portals walk,

And fluttered like a birdling can,

   And left her mark like chalk.

 

'We see her in our dreams' they say,

   'We touch her in our skin,

And though she went away' say they,

   'We feel her still within'.