C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921)

WHEN Death from some fair face

Is stealing life away,

All weep, save her, the grace

That earth shall lose to-day.

When Time from some fair face

Steals beauty, year by year,

For her slow-fading grace

Who sheds, save her, a tear?

And Death not often dares

To wake the world’s distress;

While Time, the cunning, mars

Surely all loveliness.

Yet though by breath and breath

Fades all our fairest prime,

Men shrink from cruel Death,

And honor crafty Time.