Sic Vita

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
By a chance bond togehter,
Dangling this way and that, their links
Were made so loose and wide
Methinks,
For milder weather.

A bunch of violets without their roots,
And sorrel intermixed,
Encircled by a wisp of straw Once coiled about their shoots,
The law
By which I'm fixed.

A nosegay which Time clutched from out
Those fare Elysian fields,
With weeds and broken stems, in haste,
Doth make the rabble rout
That waste,
The day he yields.

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen
drinking my juices up,
with no root in the land
to keep my branches green
but stand
in a bare cup

some tender buds were left upom my stem
in mimicry of life
but ah! the children will not know
till time has withered them
the woe
with which they're rife.

But now I see I was not plucked for naught
and after in life's case
of glass set while I might survive
but by a kind hand brought
alive
to as strange place

that stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours
and by another year
such as God knows, with freer air
more fruits and fairer flowers
will bear
while I droop here.