Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Archibald Lampman 1861–99

A Forecast

Lampman

WHAT days await this woman, whose strange feet

Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,

Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,

Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet

Frank eyes I feel the very heart’s least beat,

Keen, passionate, and full of dreams and fire:

How in the end, and to what man’s desire

Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?

One thing I know: if he be great and pure,

This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;

Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:

But if not this, some differing thing he be,

That dream shall break in terror; he shall see

The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.