The Wild Honey Suckle

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, Hid in this silent, dull retreat, Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet:
 * No roving foot shall crush thee here,
 * No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature’s self in white arrayed, 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 more 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 flower.