C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Briefness of Life

LOOK, how the flower which ling’ringly doth fade,

The morning’s darling late, the summer’s queen,

Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green,

As high as it did raise, bows low the head:

Right so my life, contentment being dead,

Or in their contraries but only seen,

With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,

And, blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.

As doth the pilgrim, therefore, whom the night

By darkness would imprison on his way,—

Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright,

Of what’s yet left thee of life’s wasting day;

Thy sun posts westward, passèd is thy morn,

And twice it is not given thee to be born.