Faded Beauty

Last days of a red tulip

“The flowers anew, returning seasons bring,
But faded beauty has no second spring.”
     — Ambrose Phillips

The tulips are losing their sprightliness; many have lost their petals.  Beauty fades.  Can we let it go without regret?

“Beauty’s a doubtful good, a glass, a flower,
Lost, faded, brown, dead within an hour;
And beauty, blemish’d once, forever’s lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.”
     — William Shakespeare

The last few petals on this tulip stand like angel wings.

Fading beauty

Seed pods of spent tulips