Was it the strain of the waltz that, repeating

Love, so bewitched me? or only the gleam

There of the lustres, that set my heart beating,

Feeling your presence as one feels a dream?

For, on a sudden, the woman of fashion,

Soft at my side in her diamonds and lace,

Vanished, and pale with reproach or with passion,

You, my dead sweetheart, looked up in my face.

Music, the nebulous lights, and the sifting

Fragrance of women made amorous the air;

Born of these three and my thoughts you came drifting,

Clad in dim muslin, a rose in your hair.

There in the waltz, that followed the lancers,

Hard to my breast did I crush you and hold;

Pale were your looks; and the rose in your tresses

Paler of hue than the dreams we have lost;—

"Who," then I said, "is it sees or who guesses,

Here in the hall, that I dance with a ghost?"

Gone!—And the dance and the music are ended.

Gone!—And the rapture is turned into sighs.

And, on my arm, in her elegance splendid,

The woman of fashion smiles up in my eyes.

Had I forgotten? and did she remember?—

She who is dead, whom I can not forget:

She, for whose sake all my heart is an ember

Covered with ashes of dreams and regret.