Stephen Phillips (1868–1915)

FRAIL was she born; petal by petal fell

Her life: till it was strown upon the herb;

Like petals all her fancies lay about.

And the dread Powers kept her face toward grief,

Although she swerved; and still with many a lash

Guided her to the anguish carefully.

So bare her soul that Beauty like a lance

Pierced her, and odour full of arrows was.

She drugged her brain against realities,

And lived in dreams, and was with music fed,

Imploring to be spared e’en sweetest things.

She suffered, and resorted to the ground,

Glad to be blind, and eager to be deaf;

Soliciting eternal apathy.

And she was swift to steep her brain in moss,

And with the heart that so had loved, to blow

Merely, and to be idle in the wind.

She craved no Paradise but only peace.