Whene'er I try to read a book, <br />Across the page your face will look, <br />And then I neither know nor care <br />What sense the printed words may bear. <br /> <br />At night when I would go to sleep, <br />Thinking of you, awake I keep, <br />And still repeat the words you said, <br />Like sick men murmuring prayers in bed. <br /> <br />And when, with weariness oppressed: <br />I sink in spite of you to rest, <br />Your image, like a lovely sprite, <br />Haunts me in dreams through half the night. <br /> <br />I wake upon the autumn morn <br />To find the sunrise hardly-born, <br />And in the sky a soft pale blue, <br />And in my heart your image true. <br /> <br />When out I walk to take the air, <br />Your image is for ever there, <br />Among the woods that lose their leaves, <br />Or where the North Sea sadly heaves. <br /> <br />By what enchantment shall be laid <br />This ghost, which does not make afraid, <br />But vexes with dim loveliness <br />And many a shadowy caress? <br /> <br />There is no other way I know <br />But unto you forthwith to go, <br />That I may look upon the maid <br />Whereof that other is the shade. <br /> <br />As the strong sun puts out the moon, <br />Whose borrowed rays are all his own, <br />So, in your living presence, dies <br />The phantom kindled at your eyes. <br /> <br />By this most blessed spell, each day <br />The vexing ghost awhile I lay. <br />Yet am I glad to know that when <br />I leave you it will rise again.<br /><br />Robert Fuller Murray<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/love-s-phantom/
