Robert Laurence Binyon

A Picture Seen in a Dream

I saw the Goddess of the Evening pause
Between two mountain pillars. Tall as they
Appeared her stature, and her outstretched hands
Laid on those luminous cold summits, hung
Touching, and lingered. Earth was at her feet.
Her head inclined: then the slow weight of hair,
In distant hue like a waved pine--forest
Upon a mountain, down one shoulder fell.
She gazed, and there were stars within her eyes;
Not like those lights in heaven which know not what
They shine upon; but like far human hopes,
That rise beyond the end of thwarting day
In deep hearts, wronged with waste and toil, they rose;
And while beneath her from the darkening world
A vapour and a murmur silently
Floated, there came into those gazing eyes,
What should have been, were she a mortal, tears.