To name it beauty, place it one amongst
the mingled mass of faces, starry nights
and places staked by beauty's claim, would be
to name the wandering constellations old,
to place them there amongst the lives of men
and all their making; name the night sky deep,
to place it one amongst the run of far
cliffed canyons, oceans hemmed in stanchion chains.
To name it beauty, that, which weaves your hair
from morning's golden skein, which knits your skin
with snow, and rose-white stitched from loosened lengths
of moonlight dropped and gently claimed; would dim
those hanging stars and stay that raging sea.
If sweet your brow were staked by beauty's claim,
then nothing, nothing else could ever be.
