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Even the beauty of the rose doth cast, When its bright, fervid noon is past, A still and lengthening shadow in the dust, Till darkness come And take its strange dream home. The transient bubbles of the water paint 'Neath their frail arch a shadow faint; The golden nimbus of the windowed saint, Till shine the stars, Casts pale and trembling bars. The loveliest thing earth hath, a shadow hath, A dark and livelong hint of death, Haunting it ever till its last faint breath. Who, then, may tell The beauty of heaven's shadowless asphodel? |