OBSERVE the rose-bud ere it blows, While the dawn glimmers o'er the sky; Observe its silken leaves unfold, As fond of day's majestic eye! At noon, more bold, in fullest bloom, It spreads a gale of sweets around; At eve it mourns the setting sun, And sheds its honour on the ground. So beauty's bashful bud appears, So blushes in the eye of praise: So ripens in the noon of life, And wither'd so in age decays. Time is the canker-worm of youth, It bites the blossom as it grows, It blasts the flower that blooms at full, And rudely sheds the falling rose. See, beauty, see! how love and joy On youth's light pinions haste away; How swift the moments glide along, And age advances with delay! Now, beauty, crop the rose-bud now, And catch the essence as it flies; Let pleasure revel in its bloom, Let time possess it when it dies. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AND SO, I THINK DIOGENES by AMY LOWELL IN HARBOR by PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE TO A CHAMELEON by MARIANNE MOORE THE NINE LITTLE GOBLINS by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY DIRGE FOR THE LATE JAMES CURRIE, M.D., OF LIVERPOOL by LUCY AIKEN RAILWAY DREAMINGS by ALEXANDER ANDERSON |