 | The Shepherd's Garden |  |
117
MUTABILITY.
I met with snowdrops growing in a cleft,
Ere yet the snow had left
Their chilly couch, and asked them of the reason,
They did not bide a more congenial season.
They told me they were only harbingers,
Pluming their funeral hearse:
For daffodils were waiting in their wake,
And they must quickly perish for their sake.
Ere yet the snow had left
Their chilly couch, and asked them of the reason,
They did not bide a more congenial season.
They told me they were only harbingers,
Pluming their funeral hearse:
For daffodils were waiting in their wake,
And they must quickly perish for their sake.
Then I did turn to daffodils that stood
Weeping beside a wood,
And prayed them say, why so their bells did ring
Such woful dirge of jaundiced sorrowing,
When all the happy woods and fields were seen
To don their summer's green:
They told me that they mourned their swift decay,
For roses soon should steal their gold away.
Weeping beside a wood,
And prayed them say, why so their bells did ring
Such woful dirge of jaundiced sorrowing,
When all the happy woods and fields were seen
To don their summer's green:
They told me that they mourned their swift decay,
For roses soon should steal their gold away.
Then did I call on roses blushing red,
With their own odours fed,
Love's couch and cradle, and demanded why
They let their loosened petals fall and lie
Plaything of every wind that wantoned there
With rough unmannered air:
They said they were but painted heralds come
To lead in summer's last chrysanthemum.
With their own odours fed,
Love's couch and cradle, and demanded why
They let their loosened petals fall and lie
118
With rough unmannered air:
They said they were but painted heralds come
To lead in summer's last chrysanthemum.
So passing where chrysanthemums were set,
With tears of evening wet,
I asked why those bright glories I might know
But so short time ere that their light should go
And leave the world bereft of every bloom,
A dark and frozen tomb:
Then did they say, We fade to signify
That all the goodly things of earth must die.
With tears of evening wet,
I asked why those bright glories I might know
But so short time ere that their light should go
And leave the world bereft of every bloom,
A dark and frozen tomb:
Then did they say, We fade to signify
That all the goodly things of earth must die.
O soul, I cried, and shall thy season's flower
But blow a single hour,
Then fall as these do fall, and fade away;
Thy hope crushed down to make a little clay?
Then did my soul look up, and soon reply,
The flower may drop and die,
But my immortal fruit shall hang on me
Though death should tear the blossom from the tree.
But blow a single hour,
Then fall as these do fall, and fade away;
Thy hope crushed down to make a little clay?
Then did my soul look up, and soon reply,
The flower may drop and die,
But my immortal fruit shall hang on me
Though death should tear the blossom from the tree.
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