Upon thy strawberry-bed, behold, threescore—
Threescore dead blooms for one that’s ripening;
And if that one to fulness thou dost bring,
Thy shuddering lips the scanty feast decline,
For ’tis a pallid and insipid thing—
Anno Salutis eighteen seventy-nine.
The burden of set phrases. Thou shalt hear
The same drear murmurs breathed from every side:
‘Something is wrong with the Gulf Stream, I fear.’
‘Through cycle wet the decade now doth glide.’