  And men may rise with glory on their brows Fall from them dead, the bronze’s broken mould. Death lies in wait for you, you wild thing in the wood, Shy-footed beauty dear, half-seen, half-understood. Glimpsed in the beech-wood dim and in the dropping fir, Shy like a fawn and sweet and beauty’s minister. Glimpsed as in flying clouds by night the little moon, A wonder, a delight, a paleness passing soon. Only a moment held, only an hour seen, Only an instant known in all that life has been, One instant in the sand to drink that gush of grace, The beauty of your way, the marvel of your face. Death lies in wait for you, but few short hours he gives; I perish even as you by whom all spirit lives. Come to me, spirit, come, and fill my hour of breath With hours of life in life that pay no toll to death. Go, spend your penny, Beauty, when you will, In the grave’s darkness let the stamp be lost. The water still will bubble from the hill, And April quick the meadows with her ghost; Over the grass the daffodils will shiver, The primroses with their pale beauty abound, The blackbird be a lover and make quiver With his glad singing the great soul of the ground; So that if the body rot, it will not matter; Up in the earth the great game will go on, The coming of spring and the running of the water, And the young things glad of the womb’s darkness gone. And the joy we felt will be a part of the glory In the lover’s kiss that makes the old couple’s story. Let that which is to come be as it may, Darkness, extinction, justice, life intense, The flies are happy in the summer day, Flies will be happy many summers hence. Time with his antique breeds that built the Sphinx, Time with her men to come whose wings will tower, Poured and will pour, not as the wise man thinks, But with blind force, to each his little hour. Which, whether good or ill we cannot tell, But the blind planet will wander through her range Bearing men like us who will serve as well. The sun will rise, the winds that ever move Will blow our dust that once were men in love.
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