The Wild Honey Suckle

     by Philip Freneau

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent,dull retreat,
Untouched thy honeyed blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:
   No roving foot shall crush thee here,
   No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature's self in white arrayed,
She bade thee shun the vulger eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
   Thus quietly thy summer goes,
   Thy days declining to repose.
                  

Smit with those chams,that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;
They died--nor were those flowers more gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
   Unpitying frosts,and Autumn's power
   Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
                  

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:
If nothing once,you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
   The space between,is but an hour,
   The frail duration of flower.