Classic Poem

TAKEN AFTER HE WAS DEAD .

As gathered flowers, while their wounds are new,
Look gay and fresh, as on the stalk they grew;
Torn from the root that nourished them, awhile
(Not taking notice of their fate) they smile,
And, in the hand which rudely plucked them, show
Fairer than those that to their autumn grow;
So love and beauty still that visage grace;
Death cannot fright them from their wonted place.
Alive, the hand of crooked Age had marred
Those lovely features, which cold death has spared.
No wonder then he sped in love so well,
When his high passion he had breath to tell;
When that accomplished soul, in this fair frame,
No business had but to persuade that dame,
Whose mutual love advanced the youth so high,
That, but to heaven, he could no higher fly.