Youth and Death

JOHN PEALE BISHOP

Youth, pausing at the outer portal,

Felt the music surge as a dawn in the blood;

Saw through the open doors, the immortal

White loveliness of dancers flash and move

In trembling ecstasy to the music's mood,

And, suddenly lonely in the terror of love,

Stood hesitant and dumb. Then to her side

Came Death, hooded in thick black, pale and hollow-eyed,

Who, seeing how in Youth's eyes the moment burned,

Rose-flame, a clear and windless radiance,

Cried: "Remember all the beauty that is turned

Wearily to the dust; loves toward which no lovers call;

And feet that, stir not now for any dance."

And Youth—that was and is love's thrall—

Replied: "Love draws its richness from the dust;

And beauty, passing in its April bloom,

Had not that perilous device we know,

But for some queen who, long ago,

Covered her golden hair with rust

Where some old town crashed to a crimson doom."