Visitors

THEY haunt me, they tease me with hinted Withheld revelations, The songs that I may not utter; They lead me, they flatter, they woo me. I follow, I follow, I snatch At the veils of their secrets in vain-- For lo! they have left me and vanished, The songs that I cannot sing.

There are visions elusive that come With a quiver and shimmer of wings;-- Shapes shadows and shapes, and the murmur Of voices;-- Shapes, that out of the twilight Leap, and with gesture appealing Seem to deliver a message, And are gone 'twixt a breath and a breath;-- Shapes that race in with the waves Moving silverly under the moon,

And are gone ere they break into foam on the rocks And recede;-- Breathings of love from invisible Flutes, Blown somewhere out in the tender Dusk, That die on the bosom of Silence;-- Formless, And fleeter than thought, Vaguer than thought or emotion, What are these visitors?

Out of the vast and uncharted Realms that encircle the visible world, With a glimmer of light on their pinions, They rush ... They waver, they vanish, Leaving me stirred with a dream of the ultimate beauty, A sense of the ultimate music, I never shall capture;--

They are Beauty, Formless and tremulous Beauty,

Beauty unborn; Beauty as yet unappareled In thought; Beauty that hesitates, Falters, Withdraws from the verge of birth, Flutters, Retreats from the portals of life;-- O Beauty for ever uncaptured! O songs that I never shall sing!