University of Virginia Library


106

THE LINE OF BEAUTY.

When mountains crumble and rivers all run dry,
When every flower has fallen and summer fails
To come again, when the sun's splendour pales,
And earth with lagging footsteps seems well-nigh
Spent in her annual circuit through the sky;
When love is a quenched flame, and nought avails
To save decrepit man, who feebly wails
And lies down lost in the great grave to die;
What is eternal? What escapes decay?
A certain faultless, matchless, deathless line,
Curving consummate. Death, Eternity,
Add nought to it, from it take nought away;
'Twas all God's gift and all man's mastery,
God become human and man grown divine.