This light cannot outshine:
Nay, even poets, they whose frail hands catch
The shadow of vanishing beauty, may not match
This leafy ecstasy. Sweet words may cull
Such magical beauty as time may not destroy;
But we, alas, are not more beautiful:
We cannot flower in beauty as in joy.
We sing, our mused words are sped, and then
Poets are only men
Who age, and toil, and sicken.... This maim'd tree
May stand in leaf when I have ceased to be.





* * * * *





WILLIAM H. DAVIES



LOVELY DAMES

Few are my books, but my small few have told
Of many a lovely dame that lived of old;