NO TRUST IN TIME. JOOK how the flower which lingeringly doth fade, queen, Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green, Or in their contraries but only seen, With swifter speed declines than erst it spread, LEXIS, here she stayed; among these pines, Here did she spread the treasure of her hair, More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines ; She sat her by these muskëd eglantines The happy place the print seems yet to bear; Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines, To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend an ear; Me here she first perceived, and here a morn Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face; Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born, And I first got a pledge of promised grace; But ah! what served it to be happy so Since passed pleasures double but new woe? RUST not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold With gentle tides that on your temples flow; Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow, Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enrolled : Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe, When first I did their burning rays behold; Nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show Than of the Thracian harper have been told : Look to this dying lily, fading rose, Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice, The cruel tyrant that did kill those flowers OWN in a valley, by a forest's side, Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves, I saw a mushroom stand in haughty pride, As if the lilies grew to be his slaves. The gentle daisy, with her silver crown, Salutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass,— I could not choose but grieve that Nature made ROSE, as fair as ever saw the North, A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth, Nor fairer garden yet was ever known: The maidens danced about it morn and noon, And learned bards of it their ditties made; God shield the stock! if heaven send no supplies, The fairest blossom of the garden dies. |