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Beauty’s Essence |
Beauty asked God one day
This question: ‘Why didst Thou not make me, in Thy world, undying?’ |
And God replying— ‘A picture-show is this world: all this world
A tale out of the long night of not-being; |
And in it, seeing its nature works through mutability,
That only is lovely whose essence knows decay.’ |
The moon stood near and heard this colloquy,
The words took wing about the sky and reached the morning-star; |
Dawn learned them from its star, and told the dew—
It told the heavens’ whisper to earth’s poor familiar; |
And at the dew’s report the flower’s eye filled,
With pain the new bud’s tiny heartbeat thrilled; |
Springtime fled from the garden, weeping;
Youth, that had come to wander there, went creeping sadly away. |
Translated by: V.G. Kiernan |
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