Elegy

Elegy for Mary Rose, aged two hours

Poor girl, peregrine of all worlds now,
The black wind drove you through our world
So quickly, you found with us no shelter
From the storm that darkened all your day.

Migrant broken on the autumn gale,
You did not stay to watch the bloody birth,
Nor heard the tires of the black saloon.

She was so young, who will teach her
What the dead should do?

She went through our lighted rooms so fast,
I had no chance to tell her
I know no more than she does.

II

Beauty’s flame and beauty’s light
Flower in a summer night
Never they but always we
Carefully, guardedly

Hoard the riot, cage the gem,
Desperately clutching them.
The smallest part is all we see
Of beauty’s prodigality.

Beauty’s children go in haste;
Who are you to call it waste?
Without your glances runs the rose
Circling in its own repose.

She will not show what made her be
Woman’s generosity.
She’s member now of that tall nation
That do not need my admiration.