Waste
Waste
Original Text
John Masefield, Poems (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1945): 68.
1No rose but fades: no glory but must pass:
2No hue but dims: no precious silk but frets.
3Her beauty must go underneath the grass,
4Under the long roots of the violets.
5O, many glowing beauties Time has hid
6In that dark, blotting box the villain sends.
7He covers over with a coffin-lid
8Mothers and sons, and foes and lovely friends.
9Maids that were redly-lipped and comely-skinned,
10Friends that deserved a sweeter bed than clay,
11All are as blossoms blowing down the wind,
12Things the old envious villain sweeps away.
13And though the mutterer laughs and church bells toll,
14Death brings another April to the soul.
Publication Start Year
1918
Publication Notes
The Poems and Plays of John Masefield (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1918).
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire, assisted by Ana Berdinskikh
RPO Edition
2009