Around the vase of Life at your slow pace <br />He has not crept, but turned it with his hands, <br />And all its sides already understands. <br />There, girt, one breathes alert for some great race; <br />Whose road runs far by sands and fruitful space; <br />Who laughs, yet through the jolly throng has pass'd; <br />Who weeps, nor stays for weeping; who at last, <br />A youth, stands somewhere crowned, with silent face. <br />And he has filled this vase with wine for blood, <br />With blood for tears, with spice for burning vow, <br />With watered flowers for buried love most fit; <br />And would have cast it shattered to the flood, <br />Yet in Fate's name has kept it whole; which now <br />Stands empty till his ashes fall in it.<br /><br />Dante Gabriel Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-xcv-the-vase-of-life/
