Blue-eyed and bright of face but waning fast

Into the sere of virginal decay,

I view her as she enters, day by day,

As a sweet sunset almost overpast.

Kindly and calm, patrician to the last,

Superbly falls her gown of sober grey,

And on her chignon's elegant array

The plainest cap is somehow touched with cast.

She talks Beethoven; frowns disapprobation

At Balzac's name, sighs it at 'poor George Sand's';

Knows that she has exceeding pretty hands;

Speaks Latin with a right accentuation;

And gives at need (as one who understands)

Draught, counsel, diagnosis, exhortation.

William Earnest Henley,

London Voluntaries, 1898.