A Face In A Book

In an old book I found her face Writ by a dead man long ago- I found, and then I lost the place; So nothing but her face I know, And her soft name writ fair below. Even if she lived I cannot learn, Or but a dead man's dream she were; Page after yellow page I turn, But cannot come again to her, Although I know she must be there. On other books of other men, Far in the night, year-long, I pore, Hoping to find her face again, Too fair a face to see no more- And 'twas so soft a name she bore. Sometimes I think the book was Youth, And the dead man that wrote it I, The face was Beauty, the name Truth- And thus, with an unseeing eye, I pass the long-sought image by.