Explore "Soeur Louise De La Miséricorde" by Christina Georgina Rossetti on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(1674.)
I have desired, and I have been desired; / But now the days are over of desire, / Now dust and dying embers mock my fire; / Where is the hire for which my life was hired? / Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure, / Longing and love, a disenkindled fire, / And memory a bottomless gulf of mire, / And love a fount of tears outrunning measure; / Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles, / Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire, / The dross of life, of love, of spent desire; / Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles, -- / Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Oh vanity of vanities, desire; / Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher, / Turning my garden plot to barren mire; / Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire, / Oh vanity of vanities, desire!