| |
| WHITHER, with blue and pleading eyes,— | |
| Whither, with cheeks that held the light | |
| Of winter’s dawn in cloudless skies, | |
| Evadne, was thy flight? | |
| |
| Such as a sister’s was thy brow; | 5 |
| Thy hair seemed fallen from the moon— | |
| Part of its radiance, as now, | |
| Of shifting tide and dune. | |
| |
| Did Autumn’s grieving lure thee hence. | |
| Or silence ultimate beguile? | 10 |
| Ever our things of consequence | |
| Awakened but thy smile. | |
| |
| Is it with thee that ocean takes | |
| A stranger sorrow to its tone? | |
| With thee the star of evening wakes | 15 |
| More beautiful, more lone? | |
| |
| For wave and hill and sky betray | |
| A subtle tinge and touch of thee; | |
| Thy shadow lingers in the day, | |
| Thy voice in winds to be. | 20 |
| |
| Beauty—hast thou discovered her | |
| By deeper seas no moons control? | |
| What stars have magic now to stir | |
| Thy swift and wilful soul? | |
| |
| Or may thy heart no more forget | 25 |
| The grievous world that once was home. | |
| That here, where love awaits thee yet, | |
| Thou seemest yet to roam? | |
| |
| For most, far-wandering, I guess | |
| Thy witchery on the haunted mind, | 30 |
| In valleys of thy loneliness, | |
| Made clean with ocean’s wind. | |
| |
| And most thy presence here seems told, | |
| A waif of elemental deeps, | |
| When, at its vigils unconsoled, | 35 |
| Some night of winter weeps. | |
| |
