phantom fading

Since we have learned how beauty comes and goes:
A phantom fading from the hills like light,
Summer and slow disaster in the rose,
An April face that wanders toward the night,--
It is not strange that we who linger here,
Are haunted by the colours of the sky,
The ghost of beauty in the stricken year,
The thought of beauty gone too swiftly by.

So that men strive with chisel, pen and brush,
To save the lifted brow, the transient spring,
Happy if they may fix the fading blush,
Or make the mood a memorable thing,
And snare one glowing hour from fleeting time,
A golden bird, caged in a golden rhyme.

David Morton: Salvage

Salvage, encaustic etc on found panel, 10x14in, 2013, available