I have beheld at dawn the fresh blown rose,
With trembling silver at her heart of gold;
And then returned, ere the first light at dusk was burning,
Ere the sun's short half-circle reached its close
Her shattered petals lay upon the mold,
Dust unto dust returning.
					
"So frail a thing is Beauty!" so the dial
Of brass and stone, marking the marching hours
Year after year, whispered -(or was it the wind sighing?)
"How brief! how barren! This morn a little while
She laughed, and nodded to her sister flowers:
Dead now, ere the day's dying!"
	
Poor sightless dial, that has not learned to know
For all its years, the shadow from the sun,
How like the world's its self-content but warped philosophy.
Each silken petal that had fluttered low
Flashed, ere it fell, a smile from God, and won
Thereby to immortality!