Symphony In White Major

In the Northern tales of eld, From the Rhine's escarpments high Swan-women radiant were beheld, Singing and floating by,

Or, leaving their plumage bright On a bough that was bending low, Displaying skin more gleaming white Than the white of their down of snow.

At times one comes our way,-- Of all she is pallidest, White as the moonbeam's shivering ray On a glacier's icy crest.

Her boreal bloom doth win Our eyes to feasting rare On rich delight of nacreous skin, And a wealth of whiteness fair.

Her rounded breasts, pale globes Of snow, wage insolent war With her camellias and her robes Of whiteness nebular.

In such white wars supreme She wins, and weft and flower Leave their revenge's right, and seem Yellowed with envy's hour.

On the white of her shoulder bare, Whose marble Paros lends, As through the Polar twilight fair, Invisible frost descends.

What beaming virgin snow, What pith a reed within, What Host, what taper, did bestow The white of her matchless skin?

Was she made of a milky drop On the blue of a winter heaven? The lily-blow on the stem's green top? The foam of the sea at even?

Of the marble still and cold, Wherein the great gods dwell? Of creamy opal gems that hold Faint fires of mystic spell?

Or the organ's ivory keys? Her wingèd fingers oft Like butterflies flit over these, With kisses pending soft.

Of the ermine's stainless fold, Whose white, warm touches fall On shivering shoulders and on bold, Bright shields armorial?

Of the phantom flowers of frost Enscrolled on the window clear? Of the fountain drop in the chill air lost, An Undine's frozen tear?

Of May bent low with the sweets Of her bountiful white-thorn bloom? Of alabaster that repeats The pallor of grief and gloom?

Of the feathers of doves that slip And snow on the gable steep? Of slow stalactite's tear-white drip In cavernous places deep?

Came she from Greenland floes With Seraphita forth? Is she Madonna of the Snows? A sphinx of the icy North,

Sphinx buried by avalanche, The glacier's guardian ghost, Whose frozen secrets hide and blanch In her white heart innermost?

What magic of what far name Shall this pale soul ignite? Ah! who shall flush with rose's flame This cold, implacable white?