Hermione and other poems [electronic text]

A MEMORY

UPON the barren, lonely hill We sat to watch the sinking sun; Below, the land grew dim and still, Whose evening shadow had begun. Her finger parted the shut book,— At Aylmer's Field the leaf was turned,—Round her meek head and sainted look The sunset like a halo burned. She knew not that I watched her face— Her spirit through her eyes was gone To some far-off and Sabbath place, And left me gazing there alone. Could she have known, that quiet hour, What ghosts her presence raised in me, What graves were opened by the power Of that unconscious witchery, She would not thus have sat and seen The bird that balanced far below

On the blue air, and watched the sheen Along his broad wings come and go. For was she not another's bride? And I—what right had I to feast Upon those eyes in revery wide, With hungering gaze like famished beast? Was it before my fate I knelt—The human fate, the mighty law— To hunger for the heart I felt, And love the lovely face I saw? Or was it only that the brow, Or some sweet trick of hand or tone, Brought from the Past to haunt me now Her ghost whose love was mine alone? I know not; but we went to rest That eve, from songs that haunt me still, And all night long, in visions blest, I walked with angels on the hill.