Poems (Larcom)/The Riddle of Beauty
THE RIDDLE OF BEAUTY.
BROWN bird of spring, on pinion soft Ascending, A voice to reddening dawn aloft Thus lending; Few heed thy song; why is it sweet? Why art thou beautiful as fleet, Light comer, Bewildered in the stir and heat Of summer?
White clouds, that over the blue sky Are pressing, The pilots of an argosy Of blessing; Ye float with all your sails unfurled Above a dull, unconscious world; None caring Whence ye those fleeces, golden-curled, Are bearing.
Blue autumn flower, thy deep heart stores Heaven's azure; And thence from out thy chalice pours Rare pleasure. The frost a plague-spot blackening casts; Thy fringe is torn when sleety blasts Grow stronger; Men love thee while thy beauty lasts; No longer.
Thou maid, around whose lip and eye Intwining, The loveliest tints of earth and sky Are shining,— Thy sweet song dies; thy freshness must Fade like a flower's, by blight and dust O'ertaken; And all the roots of mortal trust Are shaken.
O, why should thus the beautiful O'erbrood us, Yet ever its harmonious rule Elude us? The grave its hopeless blot may be; Largess to eyes that cannot see 'T is giving: The joy, the pain, the mystery Of living.
Say whence, O Beauty, floatest thou, And whither? But in a shade, an echo now Swept hither. Born with the sounds that hurry past? Dead with the shapes that flee so fast? O, never! The soul of each fair thing must last Forever.
The glory of the rose remains Unfaded, Though now no wreath from blossoming lanes Be braided. A word unknown she drooping said; A breath was in her, from the dead To waft her: And Beauty's riddle shall be read Hereafter.