Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VI. Fancy. 1904. | | | | Poems of Sentiment: II. Life | | Life | | Richard Henry Wilde (1789–1847) |
| | | MY life is like the summer rose, | |
| That opens to the morning sky, | |
| But, ere the shades of evening close, | |
| Is scattered on the ground—to die! | |
| Yet on the rose’s humble bed | 5 |
| The sweetest dews of night are shed, | |
| As if she wept the waste to see,— | |
| But none shall weep a tear for me! | |
| |
| My life is like the autumn leaf | |
| That trembles in the moon’s pale ray; | 10 |
| Its hold is frail,—its date is brief, | |
| Restless, and soon to pass away! | |
| Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, | |
| The parent tree will mourn its shade, | |
| The winds bewail the leafless tree,— | 15 |
| But none shall breathe a sigh for me! | |
| |
| My life is like the prints which feet | |
| Have left on Tampa’s desert strand; | |
| Soon as the rising tide shall beat, | |
| All trace will vanish from the sand; | 20 |
| Yet, as if grieving to efface | |
| All vestige of the human race, | |
| On that lone shore loud moans the sea,— | |
| But none, alas! shall mourn for me! | | | | |
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