Meadow

"Ye have been fresh and green, Ye have been fill’d with flowers, And ye the walks have been Where maids have spent their hours.You have beheld how they With wicker arks did come To kiss and bear away The richer cowslips home.You’ve heard them sweetly sing, And seen them in a round: Each virgin like a spring, With honeysuckles crown’d.But now we see none here Whose silv’ry feet did tread And with dishevell’d hair Adorn’d this smoother mead.Like unthrifts, having spent Your stock and needy grown, You’re left here to lament Your poor estates, alone."

"And what’s a life? The flourishing array Of the proud summer-meadow, which to-day Wears her green plush, and is to-morrow hay."