Page:Poet Lore, volume 34, 1923.djvu/650



Such wast thou; now in earth thou art Dust and a skeleton! Above thy bones This unimpassioned clay is vainly set, Mute as the ages hasten on, The only guardian of thy memory And of regret: The image of the beauty that is gone. That happy glance that charmed, As still it seems to charm, Him whom it fell upon; That lip, whence even as from a flowing urn Sprung raptures sweet; That neck, hung with desire; That tender hand, which pressed, And felt the hand it pressed tremble in ecstasy; That bosom, too, so fair That it would strike more pale the swain who saw it: All these once were; now bones And dust art thou: the sight Shameful and sad, is hidden by a stone.

And so hath Fate reduced This lovely form that, when it pulsed with life, Seemed as a shape from heaven, Eternal mystery of our being! Today, of high and wondrous thoughts And feelings the inscrutable source; Beauty supreme, and seeming like To some great, shimmering splendor Of deathless nature o'er our desert sent; Of superhuman destiny; Of happy realms and golden worlds A sign and hope secure Unto the mortal race. But by tomorrow's dawn, Loathesome to see, abominable, base Is this angelic face; And from our memory fled,