Read "City's Beauty" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Fair, oh, fair are the hills uncrowned, / Only wreathed and garlanded / With the soft clouds overhead, / With the waving streams of rain; / Fair in golden sunlight drowned, / Bathed and buried in the bright / Warm luxuriance of light,- / Fair the hills without a stain.
Fairer far the hills should stand / Crownèd with a city's halls, / With the glimmer of white walls, / With the climbing grace of towers; / Fair with great fronts tall and grand, / Stately streets that meet the sky, / Lovely roof-lines, low and high,- / Fairer for the days and hours.
Woman's beauty fades and flies, / In the passing of the years, / With the falling of the tears, / With the lines of toil and stress; / City's beauty never dies,- / Never while her people know / How to love and honor so / Her immortal loveliness.