Nowhere, Everywhere

Flesh and blood, bone and skin,     Are the house that beauty lives in.     Formed in darkness, grown in light     Are they the substance of delight.     Who could have dreamed the things he sees     In these strong lovely presences--     In cheeks of children, thews of men,     Women's bodies beloved of men?     Who could have dreamed a thing so wise     As that clear look of the child's eyes?     Who the thin texture of her hand     But with a hand's touch understand?     Shaped in eternity were these     Body's miracles, where the seas     Their continuous rhythm learned,     And the stars in their bright order burned.     From stars and seas was motion caught     When flesh, blood, bone and skin were wrought     Into swift lovely liveliness.     Oh, but beauty less and less     Than beauty grows. The cheeks fall in,     Colour dies from the smooth skin,     And muscles slack and bones are brittle;     Veins and arteries little by little     Delay the tides of the blood:     That is a ditch that was a flood.     Then all but dry bones disappears,     White bones that lie a hundred years     Cheated of resurrection....     Where is that beauty gone?     Escaped even while we watched it so,     And none guessed the way it would go?     Only it's fled, and here alone     Lie blood and skin and flesh and bone.     Where is the beauty that was here?     --Nowhere, everywhere.