Scatter no tears for beauty culled and slain. She dies as does the autumn. Time can lop Only the stalks of her abundant crop, But the deep roots must changelessly remain. These bloomy woods the reaper shears like grain, These spires and architraves that sag and drop, Are but as grist in that eternal Shop Which builds the lift and spread of hill and plain. For as no song that poet ever sung But has its model in the maker's heart, Its parent, and its larger counterpart, So crag and star and flower all have sprung Out of that Master Pattern, ever young Though worlds are swallowed like flame-riddled art. I make no plea for beauty. She can speak In her own language to the heart and eye And if the music of the groves and sky, And the blue radiance of bay and peak, And art's harmonious transports are too weak To rouse the spirit till the pulse leaps high, Then how can any word of mine supply Lanterns and wings for those that never seek? No! not for beauty trumpet your appeal, Though she stand lonely where the hermit prays -- Her rule is termless as the star-domed night! But sigh for him whose hours are roofed with steel; Who gropes in pits, and never sees the blaze Of that which steeps the heavens and earth in light. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SEVEN OLD MEN; TO VICTOR HUGO by CHARLES BAUDELAIRE THE BRIDEGROOM TO HIS BRIDE by MARY ANN BROWNE FERISHTAH'S FANCIES by ROBERT BROWNING THE MACHINE by MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT THE CHILD AND THE ROSE by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON THE LITTLE GHOST by PATRICK REGINALD CHALMERS |