Classic Poem

O Rosa Mundi, O unearthly rose
That perishes, that dies, that surely dies,
That perishes and goes
Into the dust again,
Into the groping root, the prying vein,
The terrible dumb hunger of the grass,
Or drifting wide will pass
Down to the sea,
The unremembering remindful sea, —
O flesh that dies,
Something there is of thee
More than the red idea, the lingered breath,
That bears no faith nor vassalage to death
Nor suffers any change;
Some imprint of the vanished form and fire,
Form that the hands desire,
Color the eyes adore,
Color and shape,
That lives, that lives, that does endure; not strange,
Not utterly dissolved, not less nor more,
Nor lonely imaging, —
Some coin of beauty's buried gold to escape
Earth and the secret thieving of the spring.

O Death, not all, not all his beauty's strength,
His dark crowned head,
His body's shining length
Of subtle gracefulness, is shattered, dead,
Dead and forever lost.
I see him lie, a naked swimmer tossed
High on the pallid sands,
With all the tawny summer crowning him,
His broad brown hands
Cupped to the flooding sun; thigh, shoulder, throat,
A perfect rhythm, a fierce suspended note
Of life intensely living, gay, —
I know again that day.

Ah, pitiful! He had no splendid dream,
No song, no vision's spark,
To lead him, blind, with fitful tossing gleam
Beyond your hour of dark;
He had no dream
Who was himself a music and a flame,
Who sought not glory, but himself became
The glory of his victories,
Who died
Clean washed in anger and the fighter's pride,
Unearthed of ease,
And down those burning skies
Fell like a shattered star.

O Rosa Mundi — in the rose that dies
Something there is, not mystical and far,
But dear, familiar, sure,
As in a dream the hazy voices are,
Something that lives, that lives, that lives, that does endure.