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?