While Loveliness Goes By

Sometimes when all the world seems gray and dun And nothing beautiful, a voice will cry, “Look out, look out! Angels are drawing nigh!” Then my slow burdens leave me, one by one, And swiftly does my heart arise and run Even like a child, while loveliness goes by— And common folk seem children of the sky, And common things seem shapèd of the sun. Oh, pitiful! that I who love them, must So soon perceive their shining garments fade! And slowly, slowly, from my eyes of trust Their flaming banners sink into a shade! While this earth’s sunshine seems the golden dust Slow settling from that radiant cavalcade.