VIRTUE.
Sweet day! so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.
Sweet rose! whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;
Thy root is ever in the grave,
And thou must die.
Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses—
A box where sweets compacted lie—
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season’d timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
George Herbert, 1593–1632.