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!
