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The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics/The Rose of the World

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For works with similar titles, see The Rose.
The Rose of the World (1892)
by William Butler Yeats

Written in 1892 and published in The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics. Included in The Rose collection (1893).

75321The Rose of the World1892William Butler Yeats

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.

We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.


This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 84 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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