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| I AM sad for the beauty that is dead: | |
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| For the sunset that I saw tonight | |
| As I walked on a hill. | |
| For the tangle of clouds in the light | |
| Where the rim of the sun was showing still. | 5 |
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| For the breath of a lily slim and pale | |
| That I brought from the forest yesterday. | |
| For the song of a lark on an old fence rail; | |
| For a ground-wren’s nest in the last year’s hay. | |
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| For three slim dogwoods on a mountain-side, | 10 |
| Like ghost trees whitely nodding at the grass; | |
| For a field of buttercups upon a river bank— | |
| For a jaybird jeering shrilly as we pass. | |
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| For a wild rose by an alder tree— | |
| For a ginger bloom more fragrant than the rose. | 15 |
| For a swallow sailing by with sapphire wings | |
| Where a waterlily in the shallows grows. | |
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| For all the things that are passing and are fair; | |
| For the shortness of the hour that gave them birth. | |
| For the paucity of human hearts that care; | 20 |
| For all the things that are only of the earth. | |
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| I am sad for the beauty that is dead. | |
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