Epitaph On A Goldfish

A small, perfect meditation on beauty and its passing. Richard le Gallienne turns his gaze upon the humblest of creatures, a goldfish, and in doing so, captures something profound about tenderness, loss, and the way we memorialize what we love. These verses float between whimsy and melancholy, written with the careful attention of someone who understands that no living thing is too small for poetry. Le Gallienne writes with Edwardian grace, his language lapping gently like water in a glass bowl, mourning yet not despairing. The goldfish becomes a symbol: brief, bright, and beautifully contained. This is verse for quiet evenings, for readers who linger on the small wonders. It asks us to slow down, to notice the delicate things, and to find in a creature of mere moments something worth elegizing.