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Now reading
The Captive
HANDFUL OF ASHES
THE CAPTIVE
Beauty that shakes in lights,
Beauty that gleams in mists,
Loveliness of still nights,
Gold of the stars that twists,
Ribbon-like, into the sea. . .
Beauty is calling me.
Delicate crimson flames,
Jewels with long histories,
Mysterious oft-said names,
Blossoms beneath great trees,
Melodies deep and low,
Call me. I can not go.
Heliotrope, jasmine, rose;
Lovers, at crumbling gates;
Silence, when eyelids close;
Cliffs, where the sea-bird mates:
Beauty holds these for me
Whose eyes are too blind to see.
Beauty, when sunbeams blur,
Calls me again and again.
I can not answer her.
Beauty shall call me in vain,
Sadly, from year to year . ..
Passion has chained me here.