A child on a station platform
In the ring from an arc-light’s eye,
Dancing alone against the dusk
While the rude trains thunder by.
She spreads her wee skirt in moth-wings
With the daintiest, gravest air,
She balances, trips and pirouettes
In the pallid, flickering glare.
Unconscious and elfin slender
The tiptoeing wisp of white,
A windflower lost in a gloomy wood
Or foam on a starless night.
An aura of pearly moonshine
Envelopes the fragile form,
But now and again a train drives past
Like a rumbling, shuddering storm.