Philip Freneau (1752–1832)

FAIR flower, that dost so comely grow,

Hid in this silent, dull retreat,

Untouch’d thy honey’d blossoms blow,

Unseen thy little branches greet:

No roving foot shall find thee here,

No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature’s self in white array’d,

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 less gay,

The flowers that did in Eden bloom;

Unpitying frosts, and autumn’s power

Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews

At 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 a flower.