To a Grey Dress

By Arthur Symons 1865–1945 Arthur Symons
There's a flutter of grey through the trees:
   Ah, the exquisite curves of her dress as she passes
   Fleet with her feet on the path where the grass is!

I see not her face, I but see
   The swift re-appearance, the flitting persistence—
   There!—of that flutter of grey in the distance.

It has flickered and fluttered away:
   What a teasing regret she has left in my day-dream,
   And what dreams of delight are the dreams that one may
         dream!

It was only a flutter of grey;
   But the vaguest of raiment's impossible chances
   Has set my heart beating the way of old dances.

Source: Poetry (August 1918).

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This poem originally appeared in the August 1918 issue of Poetry magazine

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August 1918
 Arthur  Symons

Biography

British poet, critic, and translator Arthur Symons was born in Wales and educated by private tutors. At 16, Symons moved to London, where he joined a vibrant literary community and participated, alongside poets like William Butler Yeats, in the notorious Rhymers’ Club, a group of poets and writers responsible for witty repartee anthologies such as The Book of the Rhymers’ Club (1892), in which Symons’s poems appeared.

Symons’s . . .

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Poem Categorization

SUBJECT Love, Infatuation & Crushes, Unrequited Love

POET’S REGION England

Poetic Terms Refrain, Rhymed Stanza, Symbolist

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