With Flowers

I send to you a nosegay that but now
I chose among the full-blown blossoms gay.
Had one not gathered them at eve to-day
The morrow morn had found them fallen low.

Let this ensample speak to you, and show
That even your beauties, in their flower-array,
Ere little time must fade and fall away
And like the flowers in one swift moment go.

Time passes swift, my love, ah! swift it flies!
Yet no — Time passes not, but we — we pass,
And soon shall lie outstretched beneath a stone.

And for this love we talk of — Death replies
Forever not one word of it, alas! . . .
Then love me, while thou'rt fair, ere youth is gone!