Seen By The Waits

Through snowy woods and shady  We went to play a

To the lonely manor-lady  By the light of the Christmas moon.

We violed till, upward glancing  To where a mirror leaned,

We saw her airily dancing,  Deeming her movements screened;

Dancing alone in the room there,  Thin-draped in her robe of night;

Her postures, glassed in the gloom there,  Were a strange phantasmal sight.

She had learnt (we heard when homing)  That her roving spouse was dead;

Why she had danced in the gloaming  We thought, but never said.gloaming* - dusk