For a Dead Lady

 No more with overflowing light 
Shall fill the eyes that now are faded, 
Nor shall another's fringe with night 
Their woman-hidden world as they did.


No more shall quiver down the days 
The flowing wonder of her ways, 
Whereof no language may requite 
The shifting and the many-shaded.


The grace, divine, definitive, 
Clings only as a faint forestalling; 
The laugh that love could not forgive 
Is hushed, and answers to no calling; 
The forehead and the little ears 
Have gone where Saturn keeps the years; 
The breast where roses could not live 
Has done with rising and with falling.


The beauty, shattered by the laws 
That have creation in their keeping, 
No longer trembles at applause, 
Or over children that are sleeping; 
And we who delve in beauty's lore 
Know all that we have known before 
Of what inexorable cause 
Makes Time so vicious in his reaping.

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