To Wilhelmina

A white face, drooping, on a bending neck: A tube-rose that with heavy petal curves Her stem: a foam-bell on a wave that swerves Back from the undulating vessel’s deck.

From out the whitest cloud of summer steals The wildest lightning: from this face of thine Thy soul, a fire-of-heaven, warm and fine, In marvellous flashes its fair self reveals.

As when one gazes from the summer sea On some far gossamer cloud, with straining eye, Fearing to see it vanish in the sky, So, floating, wandering Cloud-Soul, I watch thee.