Dorothy Dow

From “Handful of Ashes”

BEAUTY that shakes in lights,

Beauty that gleams in mists,

Loveliness of still nights,

Gold of the stars that twists,

Ribbon-like, into the sea …

Beauty is calling me.

Delicate crimson flames,

Jewels with long histories,

Mysterious oft-said names,

Blossoms beneath great trees,

Melodies deep and low,

Call me. I can not go.

Heliotrope, jasmine, rose;

Lovers, at crumbling gates;

Silence, when eyelids close;

Cliffs, where the sea-bird mates:

Beauty holds these for me

Whose eyes are too blind to see.

Beauty, when sunbeams blur,

Calls me again and again.

I can not answer her.

Beauty shall call me in vain,

Sadly, from year to year …

Passion has chained me here.