AH, often do I wait and watch, <br />And look up, straining through the Real <br />With longing eyes, my friend, to catch <br />Faint glimpses of your white Ideal. <br /> <br />I know she loved to rest her feet <br />By slumbrous seas and hidden strand; <br />But mostly hints of her I meet <br />On moony spots of mountain land. <br /> <br />I’ve never reached her shining place, <br />And only cross at times a gleam; <br />As one might pass a fleeting face <br />Just on the outside of a Dream. <br /> <br />But you may climb, her happy Choice! <br />She knows your step, the maiden true, <br />And ever when she hears your voice, <br />She turns and sits and waits for you. <br /> <br />How sweet to rest on breezy crest <br />With such a Love, what time the Morn <br />Looks from his halls of rosy rest, <br />Across green miles of gleaming corn! <br /> <br />How sweet to find a leafy nook, <br />When bees are out, and Day burns mute, <br />Where you may hear a passion’d brook <br />Play past you, like a mellow flute! <br /> <br />Or, turning from the sunken sun, <br />On fields of dim delight to lie— <br />To close your eyes and muse upon <br />The twilight’s strange divinity! <br /> <br />Or through the Night’s mysterious noon, <br />While Sound lies hushed among the trees, <br />To sit and watch a mirror’d moon <br />Float over silver-sleeping seas! <br /> <br />Oh, vain regret! why should I stay <br />To think and dream of joys unknown? <br />You walk with her from day to day, <br />I faint afar off—and alone.<br /><br />Henry Kendall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-36/
