Jewelled Vagary by Nature and Man

 

White-pearled necklace smiles,

Of cobweb, with dew beading it,

Silvery, on a bonsai-like acacia,

In murky morning, fog and cold.

 

Prickly branches sprout, frozen,

Empty-headed, standing still and mute,

Like a bribed beauty silent;

Jewelled throats disclose nothing.

 

The fog-vaulted sky above,

Vapours riding nuclei unseen,

Making things around appear as sprites,

And the necklace among the bones and thorns.

 

Gallowed! Thus serene forever,

Like the ever-impressed eyes portrayed,

Follow which the observer always,

Greedy to be jewelled more.

 

Nature’s goldsmithy and the man’s:

The necklace in the thorns,

The other making the skin prized more,

Beauty thus defined, thrives on donated bounties.