Beauty Is Dead
By Charles Swain
Snow-stormy Winter rides
Wild on the blast,
Hoarsely the sullen tides
Shoreward are cast;
Morn meets no more the lark
Warbling o’erhead;
Nature mourns, dumb and dark—
Beauty is dead!
Sear on the willow-bank
Fades the last leaf;
Flower-heads that early sank
Bowed as with grief;
Autumn’s rich gifts of bloom,
All, all are fled;
Winter brings shroud and tomb—
Mary is dead.
Sweeter than summer bird
Sang from her bough;
Music, the sweetest heard,
Silent is now;
Pale lies that cheek of woe
On its last bed;
Winter—too well I know—
Beauty is dead!
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