You that say Beauty like another word,
How perilous the utterance you choose!
Eavesdropping till the gods are overheard,
Entering, mis-timed, upon immortal cues, —
O ignorant children, briefly safe with fire,
Speak not her name so loudly in your room,
It is an altar-oath, not a desire,
Her granted element were flash of doom.

The blown smoke of her devastation rolls,
The world's afire; its towns burn with her name,
She is not hearthed, but for accepted souls,
Her sheer and silken garments are notched flame...
Stand back from Beauty's passing, that will sear
The thing inflammable that ventures near.