The Wistful Lady
“Love, while you were away there came to me—From whence I cannot tell—A plaintive lady pale and passionless,Who bent her eyes upon me critically,And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness,As if she knew me well.”
“I saw no lady of that wistful sortAs I came riding home.Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrainBy memories sadder than she can support,Or by unhappy vacancy of brain,To leave her roof and roam?”
“Ah, but she knew me. And before this timeI have seen her, lending earTo my light outdoor words, and pondering each,Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime,As if she fain would close with me in speech,And yet would not come near.
“And once I saw her beckoning with her handAs I came into sightAt an upper window. And I at last went out;But when I reached where she had seemed to stand,And wandered up and down and searched about,I found she had vanished quite.”
Then thought I how my dead Love used to say,With a small smile, when sheWas waning wan, that she would hover roundAnd show herself after her passing dayTo any newer Love I might have found,But show her not to me.
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