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?
