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The Complete Poems of Christina Rossetti

A variorum edition: Edited, with textual notes and introductions, by R. W. Crump

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“A vain Shadow.”

The world,—what a world, ah me!
Mouldy, worm-eaten, grey:
Vain as a leaf from a tree,
As a fading day,
As veriest vanity,
As the froth and the spray
Of the hollow-billowed sea,
As what was and shall not be,
As what is and passes away.