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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

To Blossoms

Robert Herrick (1591–1674)

FAIR pledges of a fruitful tree,

Why do ye fall so fast?

Your date is not so past

But you may stay yet here awhile

To blush and gently smile,

And go at last.

What! were ye born to be

An hour or half’s delight,

And so to bid good night?

’Twas pity Nature brought you forth

Merely to show your worth

And lose you quite.

But you are lovely leaves, where we

May read how soon things have

Their end, though ne’er so brave:

And after they have shown their pride

Like you awhile, they glide

Into the grave.