Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
Epitaph of DionysiaAnonymous
H
She whose little wanton foot
Tripping (ah, too carelessly!)
Touch’d this tomb and fell into ’t.
And her trippings were so few!
Summers only eight in all
Had the sweet child wander’d through.
Love’s strong seeds had ripen’d warm,
All her ways were winning ones,
All her cunning was to charm.
While the flesh was in the blood,
Childhood’s dawning sex did dower
With warm gusts of womanhood.
O what kisses kiss’d by thought,
What love-deeds by fancy done,
Death to endless dust hath wrought!
Who, till now, wast never cold,
Once Love’s aptest scholar, now
Thou hadst been his teacher bold.
Fruits and flowers; if flower and fruit
By their nature fitly show
What the seeds are whence they shoot;
Where thy buried beauties be,
From their dust shall spring and bloom
Loves and graces like to thee.