The Wild Honey Suckle

by Philip Freneau

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied 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 vulgar 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 charms, 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.