Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/476

VARIOUS POEMS But stealthy shadows follow

And Night withholds her power,

For somewhere in the eastern sky

The shrouded moon is high.

Dews from the wild rose drip unheard,—

Their unforgotten scent

With that of woods and grasses blent;

No muffled flight of bird,

No whispering voice, my footfall stops;

No breeze amid the poplar-tops

The smallest leaf has stirred.

Yet round me, here and there,

A little fluttering wind

Plays now,—these senses have divined

A breath across my hair,—

A touch,—that on my forehead lies,

And presses long

These lips so mute of song,

And now, with kisses cool, my half-shut eyes.

This night? O what is here!

What viewless aura clings

So fitfully, so near,

On this returning eventide

When Memory will not be denied

Unfettered wings?

My arms reach out,—in vain,—

They fold the air:

And yet—that wandering breath again!

Too vague to make her phantom plain,

Too tender for despair.

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