Fugitive

She is frail and changeful and cold.

When lightning cuts the sky

I hear her tapping:

"Let me in, let me in!"

I hear her laughing in the little sound

Of water lapping,

And she cries with the drawing of a bow

Across a violin.

Her footprints flower

And she bends the pliant poplars;

She whips a shower

Of foam from the waves,

And I see her young white face in a crowd.

Yet for all that I pursue her,

I have nothing.

I am tired, I am bowed.