Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of Sentiment: V. The ArtsA Painted Fan
Louise Chandler Moulton (18351908)R
All that is left of summer gone by;
Of swift, bright wings that flashed in the sun,
And loveliest blossoms that bloomed to die!
Fixing a beauty that will not change,—
Roses whose petals never will fall,
Bright, swift wings that never will range?
The swift-winged hours that came and went,
To prison the words that in music died,
And fix with a spell the heart’s content,
And loved and lovers should bless your art,
If you could but have painted the soul of the thing,—
Not the rose alone, but the rose’s heart!
As the odor is gone from the summer rose;
Yet still, whenever I wave my fan,
The soft, south wind of memory blows.