The poem, titled “Ode to Vanished Grace: The Fading of Beauty in Stone, Word, Cloth, and the Eternal Light of Christ”, is a lament for the decline of beauty in architecture, poetry, fashion, and language, while affirming Jesus Christ as the eternal source of true beauty. It consists of four stanzas, each addressing a different domain:

1. Architecture: The poem mourns the loss of sacred, awe-inspiring structures like cathedrals, replaced by cold, utilitarian glass and steel, which lack the spiritual depth of earlier designs.
2. Poetry and Language: It reflects on the decline of eloquent, soulful verse and language, now overtaken by fleeting, shallow expressions that fail to capture the timeless beauty of the past.
3. Fashion: The poem critiques modern fashion’s lack of grace and craftsmanship, contrasting it with past styles that reflected care and higher ideals, now lost to transient trends.
4. Christ as Beauty’s Source: The final stanza reaffirms that true beauty originates in Jesus Christ, whose enduring love and glory remain a constant amidst fading earthly forms. It calls readers to seek Him to rediscover beauty.

The poem blends elegy with hope, using vivid imagery and a reverent tone to contrast temporal loss with the eternal beauty found in Christ.

Where has all the beauty gone,
In arches, spires, and stone?
Once cathedrals touched the dawn,
Their grace a hymn, a throne.
Marble sang of sacred art,
Each curve a prayer, each line a heart.
Now glass and steel in cold array,
Stand stark where glory slipped away.

Where has all the beauty gone,
In poetry’s tender rhyme?
Words once wove a timeless song,
Of love, of truth divine.
Now fleeting slang and hurried prose,
Replace the verse that gently flows.
The tongue that shaped a soul’s delight,
Fades in the glare of shallow light.

Where has all the beauty gone,
In fashion’s fleeting frame?
Once robes adorned with craft and care,
Proclaimed a higher name.
Now trends in haste, with little grace,
Adorn the form but veil the face.
The elegance that once inspired,
Is lost in fleeting, vain desire.

Yet beauty’s source remains the same,
In Christ, the fount, the living flame.
From Him the architect’s hand drew,
The poet’s heart, the weaver’s hue.
His love, the spark that beauty wakes,
In every soul His glory makes.
Though forms may fade, His truth endures,
The wellspring of all beauty pure.

So seek Him where the shadows fall,
In crumbled stone, in whispered call.
For beauty lives where Christ is known,
In hearts that make His grace their own.