Classic Poem

" Where is that woman of the west,
Good Sir, once friends with me,
In rays of her own rareness drest,
And fired by sunset from the sea?
Yes, she — once friends with me."

" — She went to sojourn in the east,
O stranger Dame, one day;
Her own west land she reckoned least
Of all lands, with its weird old way,
So left it, Dame, one day:

" Doubtless they prized her marvellous mould
At its right worth elsewhere,
Yea, Dame, and kept her shrined in gold,
So speaking, as one past compare;
Aye, prized her worth elsewhere!"

— " Must, must I then a story tell,
Old native, here to you,
Of peradventures that befel
Her eastward — shape it as 'twere new,
Old native, here to you?

" O unforgotten day long back,
When, wilful, east she sped
From you with her new Love. Alack,
Her lips would still be ripe and red
Had she not eastward sped!

" For know, old lover, dull of eyes,
That woman, I am she:
This skeleton that Time so tries
Your rose of rareness used to be;
Yes, sweetheart, I am she."