Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1080

 FRANCIS THOMPSON

The fairest things have fleetest end: Their scent survives their close,

But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose!

��She looked a little wistfully,

Then went her sunshine way:

The sea's eye had a mist on it,

And the leaves fell from the day.

She went her unremembering way, She went, and left in me

The pang of all the partings gone, And partings yet to be.

She left me marvelling why my soul Was sad that she was glad,

At all the sadnesb in the sweet, The sweetness in the sad.

��Still, still I seem'd to sec her, still Look up with soft replies,

And take the berries with her hand, And the love with her lovely eyes.

Nothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan;

For we are born in other's pain,

And perish in our own.

�� �