Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)“A Vain Shadow”
| THE WORLD,—what a world, ah me! | |
| Mouldy, worm-eaten, gray; | |
| Vain as a leaf from a tree, | |
| As a fading day, | |
| As veriest vanity, | 5 |
| As the froth and the spray | |
| Of the hollow-billowed sea, | |
| As what was and shall not be, | |
| As what is and passes away. | |