Classic Poem

A FULL-BLOWN rose, in beauty's pride,
By chance my wand'ring eye descried;
Its dewy fragrance, scatter'd wide,
Perfumed the gales of morning.

When evening sunbeams tinged the sky,
I hasten'd forth, again to spy
The charms which struck my roving eye
So early in the morning.

But ah! its beauties all were flown!
And all its humid fragrance gone!
All that the sun had glanced upon,
So lovely in the morning.

Wither'd by the scorching heat,
It lay in fragments at my feet,
No more my happy sight to greet
On any future morning.

So short, so frail is beauty's reign!
Who can the pensive sigh restrain?
The longest date its charms can gain
Is but a summer's morning!