Beauty

Elinor Wylie

Say not of Beauty she is good,
Or aught but beautiful,
Or sleek to doves’ wings of the wood
Her wild wings of a gull.

Call her not wicked; that word’s touch
Consumes her like a curse;
But love her not too much, too much,
For that is even worse.

O, she is neither good nor bad,
But innocent and wild!
Enshrine her and she dies, who had
The hard heart of a child.

This poem is in the public domain.

About This Poem

“Beauty” was published in Nets to Catch the Wind (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1921).

Elinor Wylie was born in Somerville, New Jersey, on September 7, 1885. Her collections of poetry include Black Armour (George H. Doran Company, 1923) and Angels and Earthly Creatures (Alfred A. Knopf, 1929). She died on December 16, 1928.

Photo credit: The Kent State University Press

Poetry by Wylie

Last Poems of Elinor Wylie

(Chicago Review Press, 2005)

"She Walks in Beauty" by George Gordon Byron

"Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

"Endymion, Book I, [A thing of beauty is a joy for ever]" by John Keats

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June 24, 2017