Ezra Pound
“Fair Helena” by Rackham
"What I love best in all the world?"


When the purple twilight is unbound,
To watch her slow, tall grace
                        and its wistful loveliness,
And to know her face
                        is in the shadow there,
Just by two stars beneath that cloud—
The soft, dim cloud of her hair,
And to think my voice
                        can reach to her
As but the rumour of some tree-bound stream,
Heard just beyond the forest's edge,
Until she all forgets I am,
And knows of me
Naught but my dream's felicity.