Look at the fate of summer flowers, Which blow at daybreak, droop ere even-song;[385] And, grieved for their brief date, confess that ours, Measured by what we are and ought to be, Measured by all that, trembling, we foresee, 5 Is not so long! If human Life do pass away, Perishing yet more swiftly than the flower, If we are creatures of a _winter's_ day;[386] What space hath Virgin's beauty to disclose 10 Her sweets, and triumph o'er the breathing rose? Not even an hour! The deepest grove whose foliage hid The happiest lovers Arcady might boast Could not the entrance of this thought forbid: 15 O be thou wise as they, soul-gifted Maid! Nor rate too high what must so quickly fade, So soon be lost. Then shall love teach some virtuous Youth "To draw, out of the object of his eyes,"[387] 20 The while[388] on thee they gaze in simple truth, Hues more exalted, "a refinèd Form," That dreads not age, nor suffers from the worm, And never dies. FOOTNOTES: [385] Compare Robert Herrick's poem _To Daffodils_-- Fair daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early rising sun Has not attain'd his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song, etc. See also his poem _To Blossoms_.--ED. [386] 1836. Whose frail existence is but of a day; 1827. [387] Compare Lyly's _Endymion_, v. 3-- To have him in the object of mine eyes.--ED. [388] 1836. The whilst ... 1827. A FLOWER GARDEN, AT COLEORTON HALL, LEICESTERSHIRE[389] Composed 1824.--Published 1827 [Planned by my friend, Lady Beaumont, in connection with the garden at Coleorton.--I. F.] One of the "Poems of the Fancy."--ED. Tell me, ye Zephyrs! that unfold, While fluttering o'er this gay Recess,[390] Pinions that fanned the teeming mould Of Eden's blissful wilderness, Did only softly-stealing hours 5 There close the peaceful lives of flowers? Say, when the _moving_ creatures saw All kinds commingled without fear, Prevailed a like indulgent law For the still growths that prosper here? 10 Did wanton fawn and kid forbear The half-blown rose, the lily spare? Or peeped they often from their beds And prematurely disappeared, Devoured like pleasure ere it spreads 15 A bosom to the sun endeared? If such their harsh untimely doom, It falls not _here_ on bud or bloom.