Sarah Helen (Power) Whitman (1803–1878)

WHEN first I looked into thy glorious eyes,

And saw, with their unearthly beauty pained,

Heaven deepening within heaven, like the skies

Of autumn nights without a shadow stained,

I stood as one whom some strange dream enthralls;

For, far away, in some lost life divine,

Some land which every glorious dream recalls,

A spirit looked on me with eyes like thine.

E’en now, though death has veiled their starry light,

And closed their lids in his relentless night—

As some strange dream, remembered in a dream,

Again I see in sleep their tender beam;

Unfading hopes their cloudless azure fill,

Heaven deepening within heaven, serene and still.