Walter de la Mare

The Song of the Secret

Where is beauty?

Gone, gone:

The cold winds have taken it

With their faint moan;

The white stars have shaken it,

Trembling down,

Into the pathless deeps of the sea.

Gone, gone

Is beauty from me.


The clear naked flower

Is faded and dead;

The green-leafed willow,

Drooping her head,

Whispers low to the shade

Of her boughs in the stream,

Sighing a beauty,

Secret as dream.