Hand in Hand/The Fate of Beauty

by Alice MacDonald Kipling

The Fate of Beauty

OLD Age to Beauty doth more fatal prove
Than Death in Beauty's bloom and blossoming,
Which, snatching loveliness from arms of love,
Sets all the world a moment sorrowing.

That, like a subtle forger, whose base art
Defiles, defaces, desecrates at will,
And leaving all, yet changes every part,
And makes all valueless with knavish skill;—

This, like a thief who steals a diadem,
But, knowing not to change the treasure's worth,
In guilty haste hides deep the radiant gem,
A flawless jewel still, beneath the earth:—

And yet, 'twixt this and that, how hard to say,
Which better is—swift death or slow decay?