I Am A Parcel Of Vain Strivings Tied

I am a parcel of vain strivings

By a chance bond together,

Dangling this way and that, their

Were made so loose and wide,

Methinks,

For milder weather.

A bunch of violets without their roots,

And sorrel intermixed,

Encircled by a wisp of

Once coiled about their shoots,

The

By which I'm fixed.

A nosegay which Time clutched from

Those fair Elysian fields,

With weeds and broken stems, in haste,

Doth make the rabble

That

The day he yields.

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,

Drinking my juices up,

With no root in the

To keep my branches green,

But

In a bare cup.

Some tender buds were left upon my

In mimicry of life,

But ah! the children will not know,

Till time has withered them,

The

With which they're rife.

But now I see I was not plucked for naught,

And after in life's

Of glass set while I might survive,

But by a kind hand

To a strange place.

That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,

And by another year,

Such as God knows, with freer air,

More fruits and fairer

Will bear,

While I droop here.