Page:The Happy Marriage and Other Poems.pdf/86

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KENNETH

O Rosa Mundi, O unearthly rose
That perishes, that dies, that surely dies,
That perishes and goes
Into the dust again,
Into the groping root, the prying vein,
The terrible dumb hunger of the grass,
Or drifting wide will pass
Down to the sea,
The unremembering remindful sea,—
O flesh that dies,
Something there is of thee
More than the red idea, the lingered breath,
That bears no faith nor vassalage to death
Nor suffers any change;
Some imprint of the vanished form and fire,
Form that the hands desire,
Color the eyes adore,

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