[BNP/E3, 78 – 102-103]

F.

The Maiden.

A form of Beauty came once to me,

A sweeter thing than earth or sea

Or anything that is Time's contains

Or shows to our heart that has pains.

It went and I rose to seek it afar,

I walked wide and long in my lofty care,

And I asked the passers‑by on the way:

“Have ye seen this maiden? oh, say! oh, say!”

And they cried all: “No; we have felt the wind

Breathe in the blossom things undefined,

We have seen the soft leaves tremble and kiss

As memories thrilled of a vanished bliss.”

I asked a wanderer by the road:

“Hast thou seen the maiden I seek abroad?”

“No; I have seen the moonlight”, he said,

“Rest like a thought on the graves of the dead.”

And I asked of others: “Know ye the maid

Whose beauty but ignored can fade?”

“No”, said they; “than skies and flowers

We know naught fairer that is ours.”

[103^r]

And far I went and I asked of all:

None knew her on whom I did call;

They had felt the breathing of lone winds low

Tremble like lips in loves first glow.

They had seen the grass and the trees and flowers

Bloom as things whose life is but hours;

And they had looked back on their little way

And trees and flowers were in decay.

Then I asked a madman who had no home,

And he said: “Alas for thee who dost roam!

Thou must become as I am now

For her thou seekest none can know.

She lives in a region beyond all love

All human sighing far above;

In a palace there on a dream‑wrought throne

She reigns eternally alone.

She maketh the poet's mind to pine,

She seeketh him once with a kiss divine,

And longing eternal follows that kiss

And pain is the blessing of her caress.”

Alexander Search.

29. December 1907.