ON THE PORTRAIT OF A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN CARVED ON THE SEPULCRAL MONUMENT OVER HER TOMB
Such wast thou; now in earth thou art
Dust and a skeleton! Above thy bones
This unimpassioned clay is vainly set,
Mute as the ages hasten on,
The only guardian of thy memory
And of regret:
The image of the beauty that is gone.
That happy glance that charmed,
As still it seems to charm,
Him whom it fell upon;
That lip, whence even as from a flowing urn
Sprung raptures sweet;
That neck, hung with desire;
That tender hand, which pressed,
And felt the hand it pressed tremble in ecstasy;
That bosom, too, so fair
That it would strike more pale the swain who saw it:
All these once were; now bones
And dust art thou: the sight
Shameful and sad, is hidden by a stone.
And so hath Fate reduced
This lovely form that, when it pulsed with life,
Seemed as a shape from heaven,
Eternal mystery of our being!
Today, of high and wondrous thoughts
And feelings the inscrutable source;
Beauty supreme, and seeming like
To some great, shimmering splendor
Of deathless nature o'er our desert sent;
Of superhuman destiny;
Of happy realms and golden worlds
A sign and hope secure
Unto the mortal race.
But by tomorrow's dawn,
Loathesome to see, abominable, base
Is this angelic face;
And from our memory fled,
