TO MEADOWS

Ye have been fresh and green,

Ye have been filled with flowers:

And ye the Walks have been

Where Maids have spent their houres.

You have beheld, how they

With Wicker Arks did come

To kisse, and beare away

The richer Couslips home.

Ye have heard them sweetly sing

And seen them in a Round:

Each Virgin, like a Spring,

With Hony-succles crowned.

But now, we see, none here,

Whose silverie feet did tread,

And with dishevelled Haire,

Adorned this smoother Mead.

Like Unthrifts, having spent,

Your stock, and needy grown,

Ye are left here to lament

Your poore estates, alone.

Robert Herrick