Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BEAUTY AS A SHIELD, by ELSIE ROBINSON


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BEAUTY AS A SHIELD, by                    
First Line: I will hold beauty as a shield against despair
Last Line: And if there's something, I can still hope on.
Subject(s): Beauty


I WILL HOLD BEAUTY as a shield against despair.
When my heart faints I will remember sights like these:
Bronze cypresses that framed a sapphire sea,
A desert mesa wrapped in sunset flame,
An airplane that raced the Overland
Above a trail still marked with whitening bones;
A path through a dim forest, hushed and sweet,
Lit by one amber beam that fell aslant;
Foam, silver-laced, along a curving wave;
Sprawled golden hills, with shadows like spilled wine;
Tall office buildings rearing through the night
Sheer walls of alabaster pierced with gold --
And snowflakes falling on a lonely pine.

I will hold beauty as a shield against despair.
When my heart faints I will remember sights like these:
The dawning wonder in a baby's face,
The kindness in a weary wanton's smile,
The gallant challenge of a cripple's grin,
Seeing forever bodies that are straight;
The fighting courage in a mother's eyes
When she waits, braced, to meet birth's gripping pains;
The shy adoring of a boy's first love,
The eager beauty of his first crusade
Against some wrong which he alone can right --
The tolerance that sometimes comes with age.

When my heart faints I will remember sights like these,
Holding their beauty as a shield against despair:
For if I can see glory such as this
With my dim eyes, my undeveloped brain,
And if from other darkened, selfish lives
Such flashes of brave loveliness can come,
Then surely there is something more than this
Sad maze of pain, bewilderment and fear --
And if there's something, I can still hope on.





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