Classic Poem

I KNOW not, surely, what her life might be:—
Not colorless, I know—not mean, nor small—
But straight I saw that she had loved, and she
Had been most fair, and still was fair withal,
With that best fairness, speaking sorrow's touch:—
But noble sorrow only. Her sweet face
Wore wistful lines, which, haply, some might call
A marring of it, but her look was such
As suited well her figure's tender grace:
Outlined against the glimmering of the sky,
She stood, and watched, with many a deep-drawn sigh.

It was a passing picture, but I thought
I saw in that sad figure something fine—
Some faint, suggestive curve, not to be caught
And fixed on canvas. It was some divine
And subtle wave of form perceived, which spake
More to the heart than mind—to me, it seemed,
A sigh was there embodied, which did break
The sightless realms of thought, and shapes undreamed,
And stood forth, palpable; as though a moan.
Of grief's deep bitterness had come from thence
And so remained, hewn from perpetual stone,
A graven sorrow in the world of sense.

She turned and looked to where the crinkled sea,
All lone and level, loomed against the sky,
Blue as the dusking of an April hill;
Drear as the silence of the wintry lea;
Where all the leaning grass is dead and dry,
And all the footsteps of the breeze are still;
When all the dream of summer seems to lie
Asleep within the hushed and frozen rill.
She saw a sudden sail lift up on high;
But never ship, nor sail, nor form, was there.
It was the pictured longing of the eye—
The painting of the heart's fond wish in air.