Classic Poem

I SEE it in the twilight
Still moving to and fro,
A shadow tall and stately,
With graceful step and slow.

I see it in the moonshine;
And then its texture bright
Seems woven of the glimmer
That makes the summer night.

I see it when, low trailing,
The fog shuts out the bay,
And in the lighthouse flickers
The ghost-lamp far away.

I see it, tall and graceful,
Glide o'er the hard beach sand,
While, with their wistful sweetness,
Her eyes turn where I stand.

Her lips move as in speaking,
But yet no sound is heard;
And, though I long to answer,
My pulse alone is stirred.

I know it is not dreaming,
And yet she is not there,
Though back and forth it paces,
The shadow sweet and fair.

And that it is a shadow
But makes the heart beat more,
As well I know her footstep
Leaves no print on the shore.

When now she stops before me,
The buried years arise,
And all the past is looking
From out the sad, sweet eyes.

Ah, would it were no shadow!
Then might I take her hand,
And tell her all my story,
And she would understand

But, now, alas! where is she?
I walk beside the main,
And she walks ever by me, —
A shadow of the brain.