William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.

Beauty

NOT flesh alone am I, when I can be

So swiftly caught in Beauty’s shimmering thread

Whose slender fibres, woven, held by me,

With their frail strength my following heart have led.

Yea, not all mortal, not all death my mind,

When, watching by lone twilight waters’ brim

I tremblingly decipher, as they wind,

Her deathless hieroglyphs, though strange and dim.

So for this faith, when Thou my dust shalt bring

To dust, remember well, Great Alchemist,

Yearly to change my wintry earth to spring,

That I with Beauty still may keep my tryst.