Frances Cornford: Youth is like a water-wetted stone

Remember this before your hour is flown;
O you, who are so glorious, beware!
Your youth is like a water-wetted stone,
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

        --Frances Cornford (1886-1960), a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. The whole poem is below.

Susan to Diana

Villanelle

Your youth is like a water-wetted stone,
a pebble by the living sea made rare,
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

Behold it flushed like flowers newly blown,
miraculously fresh beyond compare,
your youth is like a water-wetted stone.

For when the triumphing tide recedes, alone
the stone will stay, and shine no longer there
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

But lie and dry as joyless as a bone,
because the sorceress sea has gone elsewhere.
Your youth is like a water-wetted stone.

Then all your lovers will be children, shown
their treasure only transitory-fair,
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

Remember this before your hour is flown;
O you, who are so glorious, beware!
Your youth is like a water-wetted stone,
bright with a beauty that is not its own.

Comments

[teresa]

you have the touch. Love your poetry selections and exquisite selection of images. Your vision is not a water-wetted stone, but the grass in wind fluttering as it grows skyward.