THE purple iris hangs his head On his lean stalk, and so declines: The spider spills his silver thread Between the bells of columbines: An altered light in flickering eves Draws dews through these dim eyes of ours: Death walks in yonder waning bowers, And burns the blistering leaves. Ah, well-a-day! Blooms overblow: Suns sink away: Sweet things decay. The drunken beetle, roused ere night, Breaks blundering from the rotting rose, Flits through blue spidery aconite, And hums, and comes, and goes: His thick, bewildered song receives A drowsy sense of grief like ours: He hums and hums among the bowers, And bangs about the leaves. Ah, well-a-day! Hearts overflow: Joy flits away: Sweet things decay. Her yellow stars the jasmin drops In mildewed mosses one by one: The hollyhocks fall off their tops: The lotus-blooms ail white i' the sun: The freckled foxglove faints and grieves: The smooth-paced slumbrous slug devours The gluey globes of gorgeous flowers, And smears the glistering leaves! Ah, well-a-day! Life leaves us so. Love dare not stay. Sweet things decay. From brazen sunflowers, orb and fringe, The burning burnish dulls and dies: Sad Autumn sets a sullen tinge Upon the scornful peonies: The dewy frog limps out, and heaves A speckled lump in speckled bowers: A reeking moisture, clings and lowers The lips of lapping leaves. Ah, well-a-day! Ere the cock crow, Life's charmed array Reels all away. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO JOHN KEATS; SONNET by AMY LOWELL CIVIL WAR by CHARLES DAWSON SHANLY ON HIS MISTRESS, THE QUEEN OF BOHEMIA by HENRY WOTTON THORWALDSEN by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTOWN by WILLIAM BANKER JR. SHEEPBELLS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |