The Ordered Beauty of Thy Face

 War-Time
by Dorothy Sayers

The splendour of the year, no less
Is on thy loveliness,
The light in no less glory falls
On thy unchanging walls
Now, than in other days;
No sorrow can displace
The ordered beauty of thy face;
Yet thou dost watch the water-ways
For thy lost lovers, with a grave and panoplied distress; 

 Like Iseult looking over-sea
With wan face wearily
Under the coils of braided gold
Resplendent fold on fold,
And girded queenliwise
With jewels of rich price,
With vair, and scarlet of fine dyes,
But still with shadow-haunted eyes
Straining to Tristram hard bested in far-off Brittany.