Beauty is Vain by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker questions a woman's pride in her beauty by comparing her with roses and lilies. Whether she displays or conceals her beauty, flushes with love or grows pale, time will overtake her and death will hide her in a shroud.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Poetry, Moral Poetry · 154 words
First lines
While roses are so red, / While lilies are so white, / Shall a woman exalt her face / Because it gives delight? / She's not so sweet as a rose, / A lily's straighter than she, / And if she were as red or white / She'd be but one of three.
Whether she flush in love's summer / Or in its winter grow pale, / Whether she flaunt her beauty / Or hide it away in a veil, / Be she red or white, / And stand she erect or bowed, / Time will win the race he runs with her / And hide her away in a shroud.
Genres
- Poetry — Two rhymed stanzas move from comparisons with roses and lilies to time's race against a woman's beauty.
- Moral Poetry — The speaker challenges pride in physical beauty and warns that neither displaying nor concealing it can prevent death.
Tags
physical beauty · vanity · mortality · flowers
What this Textopian page supports
Beauty is Vain is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Poetry, Moral Poetry
- Length: 154 words
- Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Beauty is Vain by Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
- Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph