Her hands were slim as lilies white,
And in her eyes an emerald light
Continually burned still fire.
Her fingers moved along a lyre,
As delicate as lilac leaves.
She was the soul that in me grieves
The woman I shall one day be,
Love-lorn beside a phantom sea.
O unborn woman, writing here
The lines you'll read in a new year,
Look up, remember me again,
And all my pity, all my pain,
My loves, my hopes, my woman-tears,
That shall pursue you down the years.
First published in The Australasian, 30 December 1922
