A Ballad Of Too Much Beauty



There is too much beauty upon this earth
For lonely men to bear,
Too many eyes, too enchanted skies,
Too many things too fair;
And the man who would live the life of a man
Must turn his eyes away - if he can.
  
He must not look at the dawning day,
Or watch the rising moon;
From the little feet, so white, so fleet,
He must turn his eyes away;
And the flowers and the faces he must pass by
With stern self-sacrificing eye.
  
For beauty and duty are strangers forever,
Work and wonder ever apart,
And the laws of life eternally sever
The ways of the brain from the ways of the heart;
Be it flower or pearl, or the face of a girl,
Or the ways of the waters as they swirl.
  
Lo! beauty is sorrow, and sorrowful men
Have no heart to look on the face of the sky,
Or hear the remorseful voice of the sea,
Or the song of the wandering wind in the tree,
Or even watch a butterfly.
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

53 sec read
18

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXABB CXXCDD EFEFGG XDHHD
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 853
Words 179
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 5

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet. The American actress Eva Le Gallienne was his daughter, by his second marriage. more…

All Richard Le Gallienne poems | Richard Le Gallienne Books

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