When night was lifting,

And dawn had crept under its shade,

   Amid cold clouds drifting

Dead-white as a corpse outlaid,

      With a sudden scare

      I seemed to behold

      My Love in bare

      Hard lines unfold.

   Yea, in a moment,

An insight that would not die

   Killed her old endowment

Of charm that had capped all nigh,

      Which vanished to none

      Like the gilt of a cloud,

      And showed her but one

      Of the common crowd.

   She seemed but a sample

Of earth’s poor average kind,

   Lit up by no ample

Enrichments of mien or mind.

      I covered my eyes

      As to cover the thought,

      And unrecognize

      What the morn had taught.

   O vision appalling

When the one believed-in thing

   Is seen falling, falling,

With all to which hope can cling.

      Off: it is not true;

      For it cannot be

      That the prize I drew

      Is a blank to me!

Weymouth, 1869.