The Passing

Weep not at all: crocuses in the grass,
Like little flames of gold, flicker and pass;
The buds that after winter soothe the trees
Have longer days, but pass even as these;
And the rejoicing and all-quickening spring
Is but, in sleep, a brief awakening.
How little earth is wide and deep enough
To cover this that, while it lived, did love
Her lover no whit less than Mary did
Her son; in what a shallow pit is hid
Beauty that, while it lived, did overpower
Strong men, and now is fallen like a flower.
This, which they leave alone under the sky,
Naked, for rains to wash and suns to dry,
Veiled her soft flesh against the rain and sun:
So fadeth every flower and every one.