ROBINSON, Agnes Mary


Etruscan Tombs

…..

To think the face we love shall ever die,

And be the indifferent earth, and know us not !

To think that one of us shall live to cry

On one long buried in a distant spot !

O wise Etruscans, faded in the night

Yourselves, with scarce a rose-leaf on your trace ;

You kept the ashes of the dead in sight,

And shaped the vase to seem the vanished face.

But, O my love, my life is such an urn

That tender memories mould with constant touch,

Until the dust and earth of it they turn

To your dear image that I love so much :

A sacred urn, filled with the sacred past,

That shall recall you while the clay shall last.

…..