A book of women's verse - Unknown

To strive to fix her beams which are

More bright and large than this.

Twice forty months of wedlock I did stay,

Then had my vows crown’d with a lovely boy,

And yet in forty days he dropt away,

O swift vicissitude of human joy.

I did but see him and he disappear’d,

I did but pluck the rose-bud and it fell,