134 
ROSA DECIDUA 
 
 
All understanding, that it bleeds again 
As a corpse should bleed at the murderer’s touch !   
Then, not content, she must needs smutch 
All my past purifying pain, 
Turning all life to a thing fouler than 
Aught yet imaginable to man !   
 
Who asks me for my tears ?   
She flings the body of my sweet dead child 
Into my face with hell’s own epitaph, 
Profanes that shrine 
Of infinite love and infinite loss, 
My empty shrine, the one shrine undefiled, 
My one close-claspèd cross— 
And hers as much as mine !   
Profanes it with a hideous laugh 
And a lie flung with a curse ;  and I must hear, 
And must not stamp on the snake, because, forsooth 
This was my love, my peace, my faith, my truth, 
The rosebud of my youth !   
 
It was—it is not—it can never be. 
This would corrupt God’s body with a breath. 
I see Him sicken and swoon ;  I see Him rot 
Through, though His tabernacle be 
Eternity. 
This makes a man catch hold of death 
Greedily like a harlot in the street 
That plucks by the arm some sot. 
Death shakes me off with a hoarse curse. 
Tied to this woman, his beneficence