frail duration

The Wild Honeysuckle

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.