“How fair is the rose! what a beautiful flower,
The glory of April and May;
And the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour,
And they wither and die in a day.
“Yet the rose has one powerful virtue to boast,
Above all the flowers of the field:
When its leaves are all dead and fine colors lost,
Still how sweet a perfume it will yield!
“So frail is the youth and the beauty of man,
Though they bloom and look gay like a rose: