The History of a Minute

I saw a lady on the stair,
And she was, oh, so strangely fair,
With a knot of butter-colored hair,
And a waiting, listening, wondering air.
She was tall as a lady ought to be,
And down she looked and smiled at me.
Her eyes were queerly brightly blue
As the bit of sky that last shines through
The gathering clouds, oppressive, gray,
On a chilly windy Autumn day.
There she paused on the stairs and smiled
Like a child who sees another child
With whom it would dearly like to play
If it only could get its nurse away.
And I know not what divine surmise.
Leapt up like fire in my eyes,
But I know her smiling suddenly stopped,
And a curtain between us blankly dropped,
And she passed me by as if I were
A man invisible to her.