Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vol. V: Literature of the Republic, Part II., 1821–1834 | | | | Stanzas: ‘My life is like the summer rose’ | | By Richard Henry Wilde (1789–1847) |
| | [Born in Dublin, Ireland, 1789. Died in New Orleans, La., 1847. Inscribed to Ellen Adair—Mrs. White-Beatty—Daughter of Gen. John Adair, of Kentucky.] |
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MY life is like the summer rose, | |
| That opens to the morning sky, | |
| But, ere the shades of evening close, | |
| Is scattered on the ground—to die! | |
| Yet on the rose’s humble bed | 5 |
| The sweetest dews of night are shed, | |
| As if she wept the waste to see— | |
| But none shall weep a tear for me! | |
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| My life is like the autumn leaf | |
| That trembles in the moon’s pale ray: | 10 |
| Its hold is frail—its date is brief, | |
| Restless—and soon to pass away! | |
| Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, | |
| The parent tree will mourn its shade, | |
| The winds bewail the leafless tree— | 15 |
| But none shall breathe a sigh for me! | |
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| My life is like the prints, which feet | |
| Have left on Tampa’s desert strand; | |
| Soon as the rising tide shall beat, | |
| All trace will vanish from the sand; | 20 |
| Yet, as if grieving to efface | |
| All vestige of the human race, | |
| On that lone shore loud moans the sea— | |
| But none, alas! shall mourn for me! | | | |
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