Poem by Elinor Wylie

Beauty

Say not of beauty she is good, 
Or aught but beautiful, 
Or sleek to doves’ wings of the wood 
Her wild wings of a gull.

Call her not wicked; that word’s touch 
Consumes her like a curse; 
But love her not too much, too much, 
For that is even worse.

O, she is neither good nor bad, 
But innocent and wild! 
Enshrine her and she dies, who had 
The hard heart of a child.

1. The Falcon
2. Bronze Trumpets and Sea Water - On Turning Latin into English
3. Address to My Soul
4. Madman’s Song
5. Nadir

Mathilde Blind Beauty ("Even as on some black background full of night")

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