28.10.2007, 12:51
Her Beauty
I KNEW that in her beauty was the healing
Of sorrows, and the more than earthly cure
Of earth-begotten ills man may endure.
Gnawed on by cares, or blown by winds of feeling ;
For in her beauty was the clear revealing
Of Truth ; and with the sight a man grew pure
And all his life and thinking steadfast, sure,
As one before a shrine of Godhead kneeling.
But then, alas ! I saw that she was made
No whit less mortal, frail, or she might miss
Death, than the summer substance of a flower ;
That on her beauty Death had even laid
A touch, and in the distance called her his,
And Time might steal her beauty every hour.
I KNEW that in her beauty was the healing
Of sorrows, and the more than earthly cure
Of earth-begotten ills man may endure.
Gnawed on by cares, or blown by winds of feeling ;
For in her beauty was the clear revealing
Of Truth ; and with the sight a man grew pure
And all his life and thinking steadfast, sure,
As one before a shrine of Godhead kneeling.
But then, alas ! I saw that she was made
No whit less mortal, frail, or she might miss
Death, than the summer substance of a flower ;
That on her beauty Death had even laid
A touch, and in the distance called her his,
And Time might steal her beauty every hour.