I know you are too dear to stay;
   You are so exquisitely sweet:
My lonely house will thrill some day
   To echoes of your eager feet.

I hold your words within my heart,
   So few, so infinitely dear;
Watching your fluttering hands I start
   At the corroding touch of fear.

A faint, unearthly music rings
   From you to Heaven -- it is not far!
A mist about your beauty clings
   Like a thin cloud before a star.

My heart shall keep the child I knew,
   When you are really gone from me,
And spend its life remembering you
   As shells remember the lost sea.