19 October 2007 | Vol. 7, No. 3

Life

by GEORGE HERBERT

I made a posie, while the day ran by:

Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie

            My life within this band.

But time did becken to the flowers, and they

By noon most cunningly did steal away,

            And wither'd in my hand.

My hand was next to them, and then my heart:

I took, without more thinking, in good part

            Times gentle admonition:

Who did so sweetly deaths sad taste convey,

Making my minde to smell my fatall day;

            Yet sugring the suspicion.

Farewell deare flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,

Fit, while ye liv'd, for smell or ornament,

            And after death for cures.

I follow straight without complaints or grief,

Since if my sent be good, I care not, if

            It be as short as yours.