The Forest Pool

One memory persuades me when
Dusk’s lonely star burns overhead,
To take the gray path through the glen--
That finds the forest pool, made red
With sunset--and forget again,
Forget that she is dead.

Once more I look into the spring,
That on one rock a finger white
Of foam that beckons still doth bring--
Some moon-wan spirit of the night,
Who dwells within its murmuring,
Her life the sad moonlight.

I see the red dusk touch it here
With fire like a blade of blood;
One star reflected, white and clear,
Like a wood-blossom’s drowning bud;
While all my grief stands very near,
Pale in the solitude.

And then, behold, while yet the moon
Hangs--silver as a twisted horn
Blown out of Elfland--sweet with June,
White in white clusters of the thorn,
Slow, in the water as a tune,
An image pale is born:

That has her throat of frost; her lips--
Her mouth where God’s anointment lies;
Her eyes, wherefrom love’s arrow-tips
Break, like the starlight from dark skies;
Her hair, a hazel heap that slips;
Her throat and hair and eyes.

And then I stoop; the water kissed,
The face fades from me into air;
And in the pool’s dark amethyst
My own pale face returns my stare:
Then night and mist--and in the mist
One dead leaf drifting there.