Beauty retires; the blood out of the earth Shrinks, the stalk dries, lifeless November still Drops the brown husk of April's greenest birth. Through the thinned beech clump I can see the hill. So withers man, and though his life renews In Aprils of the soul, an autumn comes Which gives an end, not respite, to the thews That bore his soul through the world's martyrdoms. Then all the beauty will be out of mind, Part of man's store, that lies outside his brain, Touch to the dead and vision to the blind, Drink in the desert, bread, eternal grain, Part of the untilled field that beauty sows With flowers untold, where quickened spirit goes. LV. Not for the anguish suffered is the slur, Not for the woman's taunts, the mocks of men; No, but because you never welcomed her, Her of whose beauty I am only the pen. There was a dog, dog-minded, with dog's eyes, Damned by a dog's brute-nature to be true. Something within her made his spirit wise; He licked her hand, he knew her; not so you. When all adulterate beauty has gone by, When all inanimate matter has gone down, We will arise and walk, that dog and I, The only two who knew her in the town. We'll range the pleasant mountain side by side, Seeking the blood-stained flowers where Christs have died. LVI. Beauty was with me once, but now, grown old, I cannot hear nor see her: thus a King In the high turret kept him from the cold Over the fire with his magic ring, Which, as he wrought, made pictures come and go Of men and times, past, present, and to be; Now like a smoke, now flame-like, now a glow, Now dead, now bright, but always fantasy, While, on the stair without, a faithful slave Stabbed to the death, crawled bleeding, whispering, "Sir, They come to kill you, fly: I come to save, O you great gods, for pity let him hear." Then, with his last strength tapped, and muttered, "Sire." While the King smiled and drowsed above the fire. LVII. So beauty comes, so with a failing hand She knocks, and cries, and fails to make me hear, She who tells futures in the falling sand, And still, by signs, makes hidden meanings clear; She, who behind this many peopled smoke, Moves in the light and struggles to direct, Through the deaf ear and by the baffled stroke, The wicked man, the honoured architect. Yet at a dawn before the birds begin, In dreams, as the horse stamps and the hound stirs, Sleep slips the bolt and beauty enters in Crying aloud those hurried words of hers, And I awake and, in the birded dawn, Know her for Queen, and own myself a pawn. LVIII.