I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links 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 straw Once coiled about their shoots, The law By which I'm fixed.
A nosegay which Time clutched from out Those fair Elysian fields, With weeds and broken stems, in haste, Doth make the rabble rout That waste The day he yields.
And here I bloom for a short hour unseen, Drinking my juices up, With no root in the land To keep my branches green, But stand In a bare cup.
Some tender buds were left upon my stem In mimicry of life, But ah! the children will not know, Till time has withered them, The woe With which they're rife.
But now I see I was not plucked for naught, And after in life's vase Of glass set while I might survive, But by a kind hand brought Alive 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 flowers Will bear, While I droop here.
