The Haunting

By George Sterling

Dear, thou art ever with me. For it seems
    That in all forms of beauty I must trace
    Thine utter loveliness, and find thy grace
In gardens where the drooping lily teems;
Nor may the vision vanish: still it gleams
    In all of sweet and beautiful whose place
    Is with the day; at nightfall, lo! thy face,
A phantom pearl within the gulf of dreams!

I would some hidden twilight held us twain
    Wherein all rapture and nepenthe are;
Where we might lose the memory of Pain,
    And smiling, gaze on Sorrow from afar,
As one long dead, who sees sad Earth again
    From Paradise, and deems her but a star.
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