Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver.
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.

Excerpt of The Golden Echo, a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins which was read at Liz Taylor’s funeral recently.

Watercolor painting by Ben Blatt

Tags:beautydeathGerard Manley HopkinslifeLiz TaylorPoetryThe Golden Echo