Edmund Gosse
1849.
Song for the Lute
I
bring a garland for your head
Of blossoms fresh and fair;
My own hands wound their white and red
To ring about your hair:
Here is a lily, here a rose,
A warm narcissus that scarce blows,
And fairer blossoms no man knows.
So crowned and chapleted with flowers,
I pray you be not proud;
For after brief and summer hours
Comes autumn with a shroud;—
Though fragrant as a flower you lie,
You and your garland, bye and bye,
Will fade and wither up and die.