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Wild honey from various thyme

By Michael Field [i.e. K. H. Bradley and E. E. Cooper]

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III INEVITABLE DEATH
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87

III
INEVITABLE DEATH

“Osiris knoweth his day when he shall be no more.”

In Egypt by the river, we are told,
The gods creep slowly down Time's vale to die;
And we may find their relics by and by
Mummied in cave and rock: their bones are rolled
To silver ore, their flesh becomes pure gold,
Their hair blue-tinctured lapis-lazuli.
The sun himself looks round upon the sky
And leaves it, as a man worn out and old
Fares from the city, carried to his tomb:
Therefore through all the circle of the year
He is beloved. To die, to reappear,
To leave the earth and visit it again,
Moved by the sweetness of its valley bloom,
Is to be ever welcomed among men.