Classic Poem

These frail expiring flowers,
Dying before their life had well begun,
Their birth was blessed by heaven's dearest showers,
And nurtured since by its most golden sun.

Soft is the breath of gentle May;
The skies of early June are kind and warm;
And underneath them, every summer's day,
Each light flower lifted up its fragile form;
Yet were they shielded from the fiercer ray,
Nor felt the rude bleak touches of the storm.

The brown hill's bosom was their home;
Close by some overhanging rocks,
That kept away the tempest's ruder shocks;
And there they might even yet abide,
(Had not I come
And plucked them from their parent side,)
There, where nothing their beauty could espy
Save the day's burning eye,
And the sweet bird that sung upon the lea,
And the choir'd stars, that on their airy ride,
Look'd with the moon, from midway heaven to see.

How did they spring at first to greet
The tripping of May's merry feet!
How gladly would they ripen now,
Under young June's ardent brow!
And yet, perchance, 'twere better to be so;
Since brightest things, they say,
(The brightest aye the soonest go)
Even like ourselves must fade away,
Than sadly perish day by day alone,
Upon the wild hills' breast unseen, unknown.