The Wild Honey Suckle

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
 Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
 Unseen thy little branches greet:
    No roving foot shall crush thee here,
    No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature’s self in white arrayed,
 She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
 And sent soft waters murmuring by;
    Thus quietly thy summer goes,
    Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms, that must decay,
 I grieve to see your future doom;
They died –— nor were those flowers more gay,
 The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
    Unpitying frosts, and Autumn’s power
    Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
 At first thy little being came:
If nothing once, you nothing lose,
 For when you die you are the same;
    The space between, is but an hour,
    The frail duration of a flower.