Inconstant Beauty
I did not bring home the river and sky. 舒 EMERSON.
I DID not bring the stream, the sky —
So spake the wise and gifted one,
But had they willed with him to hie,
Could he have brought the wind, the sun,
That bade the wave to arch and run,
And gave the cope its azure dye?
Or had he in the meadow stayed
Beneath the sky, beside the stream,
Could he have checked the flying gleam,
Or fixed the ripple as it played?
A risen gust, a passing shade,
Had torn or reft the fragile dream.
Beauty! It is a touch, a beam;
It is a breath that comes and goes;
It is a grace that ebbs and flows,
Though seated and secure it seem.
The form in pearl or opal stays,
But not the light that round it plays;
They still resign and still resume
With shift and dance of glow and gloom
The joyance of the kindled rays.
Ah, what shall bind the truant spell,
The coy, the wayward miracle?
Who shackle, as the instants roll,
The fleeting, fading aureole?
Nor liquid eye nor golden tress
Empales the flying loveliness.
There lives no lure, no subtle grace,
That bends not to the hour’s control
Expression in the plastic face,
Emotion in the changing soul.
So spake the wise and gifted one,
But had they willed with him to hie,
Could he have brought the wind, the sun,
That bade the wave to arch and run,
And gave the cope its azure dye?
Or had he in the meadow stayed
Beneath the sky, beside the stream,
Could he have checked the flying gleam,
Or fixed the ripple as it played?
A risen gust, a passing shade,
Had torn or reft the fragile dream.
Beauty! It is a touch, a beam;
It is a breath that comes and goes;
It is a grace that ebbs and flows,
Though seated and secure it seem.
The form in pearl or opal stays,
But not the light that round it plays;
They still resign and still resume
With shift and dance of glow and gloom
The joyance of the kindled rays.
Ah, what shall bind the truant spell,
The coy, the wayward miracle?
Who shackle, as the instants roll,
The fleeting, fading aureole?
Nor liquid eye nor golden tress
Empales the flying loveliness.
There lives no lure, no subtle grace,
That bends not to the hour’s control
Expression in the plastic face,
Emotion in the changing soul.
The Naiad seeks the welcome pool,
The Nymph is lost far down the glade:
But weep thou not too long, poor fool!
The charm had vanished, had they stayed!
The Nymph is lost far down the glade:
But weep thou not too long, poor fool!
The charm had vanished, had they stayed!
Yet life, by her unchanging rule,
If stern, is also merciful.
If ebbing time the yielded grace
From fairest things shall oft recall,
Some bounty, as the seasons pace,
Shall ebbing time accord to all.
The plain and low, the mean and small,
Shall tempt by turns the stooping wing;
The glory that to naught will cling
To naught will ever distant be;
Confineless by the bolt or key,
Untrammeled by delaying gyves,
For entrance as for egress free,
Receding still, it still arrives,
O cursed, O blest, inconstancy!
Shall Beauty shrink or be afraid?
She is the moth whose wingèd speed
Forsakes the flower to woo the weed;
The moonbeam leaving in the shade
The jasmine and the rich arcade,
To bathe in lustre clear and cool
The pebble and the turbid pool;
She is the queen who turns her face
From lords in noble vestments brave,
To smile, in brief yet boundless grace,
An instant on the passing slave.
Her light the hidden charm reveals,
The fatal blot her shadow heals;
The rugged face, the soul of gloom,
Transfigured in her blessing rise;
She flies forever — ’t is our doom —
Yet stoops forever as she flies.
If stern, is also merciful.
If ebbing time the yielded grace
From fairest things shall oft recall,
Some bounty, as the seasons pace,
Shall ebbing time accord to all.
The plain and low, the mean and small,
Shall tempt by turns the stooping wing;
The glory that to naught will cling
To naught will ever distant be;
Confineless by the bolt or key,
Untrammeled by delaying gyves,
For entrance as for egress free,
Receding still, it still arrives,
O cursed, O blest, inconstancy!
Shall Beauty shrink or be afraid?
She is the moth whose wingèd speed
Forsakes the flower to woo the weed;
The moonbeam leaving in the shade
The jasmine and the rich arcade,
To bathe in lustre clear and cool
The pebble and the turbid pool;
She is the queen who turns her face
From lords in noble vestments brave,
To smile, in brief yet boundless grace,
An instant on the passing slave.
Her light the hidden charm reveals,
The fatal blot her shadow heals;
The rugged face, the soul of gloom,
Transfigured in her blessing rise;
She flies forever — ’t is our doom —
Yet stoops forever as she flies.