Explore "The Passing of the Beautiful" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ On southern winds shot through with amber light, / Breeding soft balm, and clothed in cloudy white, / The lily-fingered Spring came o'er the hills / Waking the crocus and the daffodils. / O'er the cold earth she breathed a tender sigh, -- / The maples sang and flung their banners high, / Their crimson-tasseled pennons, and the elm / Bound his dark brows with a green-crested helm. / Beneath the musky rot of Autumn's leaves, / Under the forest's myriad naked eaves, / Life woke and rose in gold and green and blue, / Robed in the star-light of the twinkling dew.
/ With timid tread adown the barren wood / Spring held her way, when, lo! before her stood / White-mantled Winter wagging his white head, / Stormy his brow, and stormily he said: -- / "Sole lord of terror, and the fiend of storm, / Crowned king of despots, my envermeiled arm / Slew these vast woodlands crimsoning all their bowers! / Thou, Spirit of Beauty, with thy bursting flowers, / Swollen with pride, wouldst thou usurp my throne, / Long planted here deep in the waste's wild moan? / Sworn foe of beauty, with a band of ice / I'll strangle thee tho' thou be welcomer thrice! " / So round her throat a band of blasting frost, / Her sainted throat of snow, he coiled and crossed, / And cast her on the dark, unfeeling mold; / Her tender blossoms, blighted in the fold / Of her warm bosoms, trembling bowed their brows / In holy meekness, or in scattered rows / Huddled about her white and silent feet, / Or on pale lips laid fond last kisses sweet, / And died: lilacs all musky for the May, / And bluer violets, and snow drops lay / Silent and dead, but yet divinely fair, / Like ice gems glist'ning in Spring's lovely hair.