Sifts half the pleasure of short life away!
Thou fill’st nature; and in the loamy clod,
Swelling with vegetative force instinct,
Didst burst thine egg, as theirs the fabled Twins,
Now stars; two lobes protruding, pair’d exact;
A leaf succeeded, and another leaf,
And, all the elements thy puny growth
Fost’ring propitious, thou becam’st a twig.
Who liv’d when thou wast such? O couldst thou speak
As in Dodona once, thy kindred trees,