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We Needs Must Be Divided In The Tomb

George Santayana

We needs must be divided in the tomb,
 For I would die among the hills of Spain,
 And o’er the treeless, melancholy plain
Await the coming of the final gloom.
But thou—O pitiful!—wilt find scant room
 Among thy kindred by the northern main,
 And fade into the drifting mist again,
The hemlocks’ shadow, or the pines’ perfume.

Let gallants lie beside their ladies’ dust
 In one cold grave, with mortal love inurned;
Let the sea part our ashes, if it must,
 The souls fled thence which love immortal burned,
For they were wedded without bond of lust,
 And nothing of our heart to earth returned.
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Little Book of Modern Verse | 1913
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