Poems (Larcom)/The Riddle of Beauty

by Lucy Larcom

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.