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99
THE EVER-YOUNG.
Beauty's forms are ever young,
Sculptured, painted, writ, or sung;
For the ages o'er them pass,
Light as breezes o'er the grass.
While grows old the human clay,
Never can they feel decay;
But the while the world grows older
Grow no duller, grow no colder,
And from their eternal truth,
Live in a perpetual youth.
Sculptured, painted, writ, or sung;
For the ages o'er them pass,
Light as breezes o'er the grass.
While grows old the human clay,
Never can they feel decay;
But the while the world grows older
Grow no duller, grow no colder,
And from their eternal truth,
Live in a perpetual youth.
Say, has Time impressed a furrow
On the marble Venus' brow?
Was she younger on the morrow
Of her birth than she is now?
Yet above that marble head
Twenty centuries have fled!
Mars a single thread of silver
Saint Ceeilia's chestnut hair?
Is she older, is she colder
Than when Rafael was there?
On the marble Venus' brow?
Was she younger on the morrow
Of her birth than she is now?
Yet above that marble head
Twenty centuries have fled!
Mars a single thread of silver
Saint Ceeilia's chestnut hair?
Is she older, is she colder
Than when Rafael was there?
100
Yet how many beauties, say,
Have since then grown old and grey!
Is our Shakespeare's Juliet older
Than the day she saw the light?
Would not Romeo still enfold her
In his arms, as on that night?
When a thousand years are cast
On the heap we call the Past,
Will the music of Mozart
Be less youthful for the heart?
Have since then grown old and grey!
Is our Shakespeare's Juliet older
Than the day she saw the light?
Would not Romeo still enfold her
In his arms, as on that night?
When a thousand years are cast
On the heap we call the Past,
Will the music of Mozart
Be less youthful for the heart?
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