WHO dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? <br />For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, <br />Mournful that no new wonder may betide, <br />Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, <br />And Usna's children died. <br />We and the labouring world are passing by: <br />Amid men's souls, that waver and give place <br />Like the pale waters in their wintry race, <br />Under the passing stars, foam of the sky, <br />Lives on this lonely face. <br />Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode: <br />Before you were, or any hearts to beat, <br />Weary and kind one lingered by His seat; <br />He made the world to be a grassy road <br />Before her wandering feet.<br /><br />William Butler Yeats<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-rose-of-the-world/
