That beauty such as thine <br />Can die indeed, <br />Were ordinance too wantonly malign: <br />No wit may reconcile so cold a creed <br />With beauty such as thine. <br /> <br />From wave and star and flower <br />Some effluence rare <br />Was lent thee, a divine but transient dower: <br />Thou yield'st it back from eyes and lips and hair <br />To wave and star and flower. <br /> <br />Shouldst thou to-morrow die, <br />Thou still shalt be <br />Found in the rose and met in all the sky: <br />And from the ocean's heart shalt sing to me, <br />Shouldst thou to-morrow die.<br /><br />William Watson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/beauty-s-metempsychosis/
