Classic Poem

The piteousness of passing things
Haunts her beseeching eyes, the stir
Of those appealing lips, and stings
My senses, hungering for her,
With over-much delight, that brings
A presage of departing things.

Death in her lilied whiteness lives,
The shadow of Death's eternal lust
After the delicate flesh that gives
The life of lilies to the dust.
Ah, if thy lust my love forgives,
Death, spare this whitest flesh that lives!