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.
Edwin Arlington Robinson
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