The Symbol Seduces

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There in her old-world garden smiles   
A symbol of the world’s desire,   
Striving with quaint and lovely wiles   
To bind to earth the soul of fire.   

And while I sit and listen there,   
The robe of Beauty falls away   
From universal things to where   
Its image dazzles for a day.   

Away! the great life calls; I leave   
For Beauty, Beauty’s rarest flower;   
For Truth, the lips that ne’er deceive;   
For Love, I leave Love’s haunted bower.

*******
✍ George William Russell (Lurgan, County Armagh, Ireland, 10 April 1867 ~ Bournemouth, England, 17 July 1935).
◙ Artwork: Edward Burne-Jones
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