Elusion

I My soul goes out to her who says, 'Come, follow me and cast off care!' Then tosses back her sun-bright hair, And like a flower before me sways Between the green leaves and my gaze: This creature like a girl, who smiles Into my eyes and softly lays Her hand in mine and leads me miles, Long miles of haunted forest ways. II Sometimes she seems a faint perfume, A fragrance that a flower exhaled And God gave form to; now, unveiled, A sunbeam making gold the gloom Of vines that roof some woodland room Of boughs; and now the silvery sound Of streams her presence doth assume- Music, from which, in dreaming drowned, A crystal shape she seems to bloom. III Sometimes she seems the light that lies On foam of waters where the fern Shimmers and drips; now, at some turn Of woodland, bright against the skies, She seems the rainbowed mist that flies; And now the mossy fire that breaks Beneath the feet in azure eyes Of flowers; now the wind that shakes Pale petals from the bough that sighs. IV Sometimes she lures me with a song; Sometimes she guides me with a laugh; Her white hand is a magic staff, Her look a spell to lead me long: Though she be weak and I be strong, She needs but shake her happy hair, But glance her eyes, and, right or wrong, My soul must follow-anywhere She wills-far from the world's loud throng. V Sometimes I think that she must be No part of earth, but merely this- The fair, elusive thing we miss In Nature, that we dream we see Yet never see: that goldenly Beckons; that, limbed with rose and pearl, The Greek made a divinity:- A nymph, a god, a glimmering girl, That haunts the forest's mystery.