Beauty! Thou Arbitress of Weal or Woe

Beauty! thou arbitress of weal or woe
To others, but how powerless of thy own,
How prone to fall on the smooth path, how prone
To place thy tender foot on the sharp flint
And bleed until the evening fade and die!
I see thee happy now, and I rejoice,
As if thou wert ( almost as if!) for me:
But thou hast tarried with me long enough,
And now hast taken all thy gifts away.
How various and how chanceful is thy mien!
Various and changeful as the neck of doves
In colour: here so meek, so stately there;
Here festive, and there sad; here, tali, erect,
Commanding; there, small, slender, bent to yield.
I have observ'd thee resolute and bold
And stepping forth to conquer, and thy brow
Battling its laurel o'er the myrtle crown;
Beauty! I now behold thee lower thine eyes
And throw them forward on the ground, while two
Close at thy side interrogate and plead.
Others have done the same, but those were met
Calmly, and smiles were cast indifferently
Back into them; smiles that smote every heart,
But most the heart they fell into that hour.
It pleas'd me to behold it: we all love
To see a little of the cruelty
We could ill bear, and, when we read of, weep.
Beauty! thou now art with that innocent
Who seems of Love's Own age, and Love's own power.
Haply ere this there are upon the earth
Some, by all hope abandoned, who ascend
The highths of Himalaya; some who fight
Where Napier's foot makes Hindus run straight on,
And Kyber quails beneath his eagle eye;
While others bear her on untiring breast
To Zembla, and with iron that often breaks
Engrave her name upon eternal ice.