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No sooner spreads her beauty in the air,
But straight her wide-blown pomp comes to decline;
She then is scorned who late adorned the fair:
So fade the roses in those cheeks of thine,
No April can revive the withered flowers,
Whose springing grace adorns thy glory now;
Swift speedy time, feather'd with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
Then do not thou such treasure waste in vain,
But love now, whilst thou mayest be loved again.
Sir Richard Fanshawe (1607) addresses the fair flower herself on her vain display of loveliness, thus presenting an attractive fable to his gentle readers who could not well avoid perceiving the hidden moral.
Thou blushing rose, within whose virgin leaves
The wanton wind to sport himself presumes,
Whilst from their rifled wardrobe he receives
For his wings purple, for his breath perfumes;
Blown in the morning, thou shalt fade ere noon,
What boots a life which in such haste forsakes thee
Thou'rt wondrous frolic, being to die so soon,
And passing proud a little colour makes thee.
If thee thy brittle beauty so deceives,
Know then, the thing that swells thee is thy bane;
For that same beauty doth in bloody leaves
The sentence of thy early death contain.
Some clown's coarse lungs will poison thy sweet flower,
If by the careless plough thou shalt be torn;
And many Herods lie in wait each hour
To murder thee as soon as thou art born,
Nay, force thy bud to blow, their tyrant breath
Anticipating life, to hasten death.
