I shall not soon forget her and her eyes,

The haunts of hate, where suffering seemed to write

Its stealthy name, whose syllables are sighs,

In strange and starless night.

I shall not soon forget her and her face,

So quiet, yet uneasy as a dream

That stands on tip-toe in a haunted place

And listens for a scream.

She made me feel as one, alone, may feel

In some grand, ghostly mansion of old time,

The presence of a treasure, walls conceal,

And secret of a crime.

With lambent faces, mimicking the moon,

The water lilies lie;

Dotting the darkness of the long lagoon

As stars, the sky.

A young girl's face, death makes mute marble of,

Turned to the moon and me,

Sad with the pathos of unspeakable love,

Floating to sea.

One listening bent, in dread of something coming

He can not flee nor balk—

A phantom footstep, in the ghostly gloaming,

That haunts a ruined walk.

Long has he given his whole heart's hard endeavor

To labor, dark and dawn,

Dreaming that Love still watched his toil and ever

Turned kindly eyes thereon.

Now in his life, he feels, there nears an hour,

Inevitable, alas!

When in the darkness he shall cringe and cower,

And see his dead self pass.