SUMMER is waning, the roses are dead; Lilies, sweet violets, and hyacinths fled; Her fragrant blossoms the hawthorn has shed; Faded the cowslip; and low on her bed The daisy is drooping and pale. The sorrel's soft blossoms of pearly gloss Hide in her cushion of green velvet moss; Bloomless the eglantine droops from the trees, Her honeyed breathings perfume not the breeze That murmurs and sighs through the vale. Warblers are silent: the song of the thrush Is hailing no more, from tree and from bush, The soft summer dawn with roseate blush Kindling the east with a crimsoning flush, Brightened with streamers of gold. Grasshoppers chirrup no more in the grass; We hear not the humming of bees as they pass, Nectar to drain from the sweet heather bells, Storing their treasures in soft waxen cells, For winter, dark, cheerless, and cold. Man! when the rose of thy summer is dead, When youth, with its flowers and pleasures are fled, Blossoms that charm'd with their fragrance all shed; Time and decay shedding snow on thy head, And thy brow grows wrinkled and pale; Then when the roses and flowers of thy youth Shall die, may blossoms of virtue and truth, Deathless in beauty, and rich in perfume, Cheer thee in life, and shed over thy tomb Sweet memories, never to fail! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE BATTLE OF NASEBY by THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY MEAPLE LEAVES BE YOLLOW by WILLIAM BARNES THE EVICTION by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT A SISTER OF SORROW: 2. WEEPING CROSS by GORDON BOTTOMLEY BALLADE OF THE DEVIL-MAY-CARE by FRANK GELETT BURGESS SONGS OF THE SEA CHILDREN: 84 by BLISS CARMAN |