Classic Poem

Within how many metamorphoses,
matter informed with life, hast thou had being?
Sweet-smelling snow of jessamine thou wast,
and in the pallid ashes didst endure.

Such horror by thee to thyself laid bare,
king of flowers, the purple thou didst don.
In such throng of dead forms thou didst not die,
thy deathbound being by thee immortalized.

For thou dost never wake to reason's light,
nor ever die before the invisible
murderous onset of the winged hours.

What, with so many deaths art thou not wise?
What art thou, incorruptible nature, thou
who hast been widowed thus of so much life?