Shadow

Shadow written by Walter de la Mare

Poems (1906)

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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?

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