POEM: THE ETERNAL

Your dear desired grace,

Your hands, your lips of red,

The wonder of your perfect face

Will fade, like sweet rose-petals shed,

When you are dead.

Your beautiful hair

Dust in the dust will lie -

But not the light I worship there,

The gold the sunshine crowns you by -

This will not die.

Your beautiful eyes

Will be closed up with clay;

But all the magic they comprise,

The hopes, the dreams, the ecstasies

Pass not away.

All I desire and see

Will be a carrion thing;

But all that you have been to me

Is, and can never cease to be.

O Grave! where is thy victory?

Where, Death, thy sting?