The Pompadour in Art: V

But Beauty is more delicate than the wind,
Trackless and as intangible as light;
It cannot be pinned down for common sight;
Like violets in a wood it haunts us blind,
Though scentless trees are mirrored in our mind.
A girl's dress is a lovely wood, a night
Of flowing clouds and shattered, shaken light;
An arabesque of dust to dust resigned,
With cloud and wood and star, and her bright love:
And in these rags, and in the dust of worlds,
Beauty departed lies as lies the dove
In a few feathers bleaching in the sun—
As the form crumbles so the spirit wanes
And we'll not find it more for all our pains.