"For the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness, the fruit there of dust;No thorns go as deep as the rose's,And love is more cruel than lust.Time turns the old days to derision,Our loves into corpses or wives;And marriage and death and divisionMake barren our lives."
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic associated with the Victorian literary world. He became one of the most prominent and controversial poets of his generation. He died in 1909.