Your beauty is as subtle as a strain Of quiet music hardly sensed or heard, Music with accents softened, tempered, blurred, Which scarcely seem recorded by the brain; Till afterwards, when mightier measures wane Leaving the memory unthrilled, unstirred, That strain returns like some sweet spell deferred Binding the senses in a lyric chain. Your beauty is such music, muted low, It lingers when more poignant loveliness Has lost its magic. Subtle, gentle, slow, An anodyne to all life's bitter stress, It thrills me—and all beauty else becomes Brazen as cymbals, boisterous as drums! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CAPUT MORTUUM by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON THE DYING SWAN by ALFRED TENNYSON CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK; 1658 by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 15. ON DOMESTIC MANNERS (UNFINISHED) by MARK AKENSIDE IN PRAISE OF OLD AGE by ANAXANDRIDES |