Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/237

139 No sooner spreads her beauty in the air,

But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline;

She then is scorned who late adorned the fair:

So fade the roses in those cheeks of thine,

No April can revive the withered flowers,

Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now;

Swift speedy time, feather'd with flying hours,

Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.

Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain,

But love now, whilst thou mayest be loved again.

Sir Richard Fanshawe (1607) addresses the fair flower herself on her vain display of loveliness, thus presenting an attractive fable to his gentle readers who could not well avoid perceiving the hidden moral.