Edmund Gosse

1849.

Song for the Lute.

I

bring a garland for your head

Of blossoms fresh and fair;

My own hands wound their white and red

To ring about your hair:

Here is a lily, here a rose,

A warm narcissus that scarce blows,

And fairer blossoms no man knows.

So crowned and chapleted with flowers,

I pray you be not proud;

For after brief and summer hours

Comes autumn with a shroud;—

Though fragrant as a flower you lie,

You and your garland, bye and bye,

Will fade and wither up and die.