Love in thy youth, fair maid, be wise,
Old Time will make thee colder,
And though each morning new arise
Yet we each day grow older.
Thou as heaven art fair and young,
Thine eyes like twin stars shining:
But ere another day be sprung,
All these will be declining;
Then winter comes with all his fears,
And all thy sweets shall borrow;
Too late then wilt thou shower thy tears,
And I, too late, shall sorrow.
—Walter Porter
Days
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and faggots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will—
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watch'd the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turn'd and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
A Hymn to Love
I will confess
With cheerfulness,
Love is a thing so likes me,
That let her lay
On me all day
I'll kiss the hand that strikes me.
I will not, I
Now blubb'ring, cry,
It (ah!) too late repents me,
That I did fall
To love at all,
Since love so much contents me.
No, no, I'll be
In fetters free:
While others they sit wringing
Their hands for pain,
I'll entertain
The wounds of love with singing.
—Robert Herrick