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 powerShall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dewsAt 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 flower.

1786

l. 3. blow: bloom, blossom.