Page:Songs of the Springtides - Swinburne (1880).pdf/27

 Though spirit and flesh were one thing doomed and dead, Not wholly annihilated. Seeing even the hoariest ash-flake that the pyre Drops, and forgets the thing was once afire And gave its heart to feed the pile's full flame Till its own heart its own heat overcame, Outlives its own life, though by scarce a span, As such men dying outlive themselves in man, Outlive themselves for ever; if the heat Outburn the heart that kindled it, the sweet Outlast the flower whose soul it was, and flit Forth of the body of it Into some new shape of a strange perfume More potent than its light live spirit of bloom, How shall not something of that soul relive, That only soul that had such gifts to give As lighten something even of all men's doom