George Henry Calvert (1803–1889)

WHO that has had of beauteous womanhood

Translucent visions, in his holiest dreams,

Or when the abstracted, waking mind so teems

With images of beauty that ’t will brood,

In happiest silence, on the fertile mood

So deeply, till each outward thing but seems

Fantastic, while the flashing, inward gleams

Compound a loveliness that would be wooed

As a reality,—were such to come

Before thee, with a virgin joy, his soul,

Like a new spirit in Elysium,

Would gush with ecstasy, while from it roll

All memories of dreams or inward sight,

Paled by the fulgence of thy wondrous light.