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“The Rose of the World” by W. B. Yeats 🇮🇪 (13 Jun 186528 Jan 1939)
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips with all their mournful pride
Mournful that no new wonder may betide
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam
And Usna’s children died.
We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men’s souls that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race
Under the passing stars foam of the sky
Lives on this lonely face.
Bow down archangels in your dim abode:
Before you were or any hearts to beat
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.