Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VI. Fancy. 1904. | | | | Poems of Sentiment: V. The Arts | | A Painted Fan | | Louise Chandler Moulton (1835–1908) |
| | | ROSES and butterflies snared on a fan, | |
| All that is left of summer gone by; | |
| Of swift, bright wings that flashed in the sun, | |
| And loveliest blossoms that bloomed to die! | |
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| By what subtle spell did you lure them here, | 5 |
| Fixing a beauty that will not change,— | |
| Roses whose petals never will fall, | |
| Bright, swift wings that never will range? | |
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| Had you owned but the skill to snare as well | |
| The swift-winged hours that came and went, | 10 |
| To prison the words that in music died, | |
| And fix with a spell the heart’s content, | |
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| Then had you been of magicians the chief; | |
| And loved and lovers should bless your art, | |
| If you could but have painted the soul of the thing,— | 15 |
| Not the rose alone, but the rose’s heart! | |
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| Flown are those days with their winged delights, | |
| As the odor is gone from the summer rose; | |
| Yet still, whenever I wave my fan, | |
| The soft, south wind of memory blows. | 20 | | | |
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