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Home  »  Modern American Poetry  »  While Loveliness Goes By

Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern American Poetry. 1919.

Anna Hempstead Branch1875–1937

While Loveliness Goes By

SOMETIMES when all the world seems grey and dun

And nothing beautiful, a voice will cry,

“Look out, look out! Angels are drawing nigh!”

Then my slow burdens leave me one by one,

And swiftly does my heart arise and run

Even like a child while loveliness goes by—

And common folk seem children of the sky,

And common things seem shapèd of the sun.

Oh, pitiful! that I who love them, must

So soon perceive their shining garments fade!

And slowly, slowly, from my eyes of trust

Their flaming banners sink into a shade!

While this earth’s sunshine seems the golden dust

Slow settling from that radiant cavalcade.