The Image

POOR fawn in a dying trance,
In thy glazing eye-balls reflect me,
And make my memory dance
With the wraiths that now expect thee.

 

Say to the dead that muse
On the days when they were sprightly,
I sit and dream of them nightly
In the shadow of the yews.

 

Praise my forehead wimpled,
And narrow mouth as well;
Tell them my fingers are dimpled,
And of grass and privet smell;

 

That my movements are unencumbered
As the shadows never at ease,
Which the living leaves unnumbered
Poise in the apple-trees.

 

Tell them my eyelids grow heavy
At times with a pain that hurts,
That I dance at eve with a bevy
Of maidens with wind-lifted skirts.

 

Tell them I sleep with my head on
My naked arms that I fold,
That my veins are a violet thread on
A cushion of flesh and gold.

 

Tell them how blue my hair is,
Like plums that will tumble soon,
That my feet are mirrors for fairies,
That my eyes have the colours of the moon,

 

And say that in nights of yearning,
By fountains as I pace,
For their tender love I am burning,
And their futile ghosts embrace.