Your dear desired grace, <br />Your hands, your lips of red, <br />The wonder of your perfect face <br />Will fade, like sweet rose-petals shed, <br />When you are dead. <br /> <br />Your beautiful hair <br />Dust in the dust will lie - <br />But not the light I worship there, <br />The gold the sunshine crowns you by - <br />This will not die. <br /> <br />Your beautiful eyes <br />Will be closed up with clay; <br />But all the magic they comprise, <br />The hopes, the dreams, the ecstasies <br />Pass not away. <br /> <br />All I desire and see <br />Will be a carrion thing; <br />But all that you have been to me <br />Is, and can never cease to be. <br />O Grave! where is thy victory? <br />Where, Death, thy sting?<br /><br />Edith Nesbit<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-eternal-4/
