Song from the Devil's Law-Case by Alice Meynell

ALL the flowers of the spring

Meet to perfume our burying;

These have but their growing prime,

And man does flourish but his time.

Survey our progress from our birth;

We're set, we grow, we turn to earth,

Courts adieu, and all delights,

All bewitching appetites!

Sweetest breath and clearest eye, / Like perfumes, go out and die; / And consequently this is done / As shadows wait upon the sun.

Vain the ambition of kings / Who seek by trophies and dead things / To leave a living name behind, / And weave but nets to catch the wind.