Life

I made a posie, while the day ran by: 

Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie 

                      My life within this band.

But time did beckon to the flowers, and they 

By noon most cunningly did steal away

                      And wither'd in my hand. 

My hand was next to them, and then my heart: 

I took, without more thinking, in good part 

                      Times gentle admonition: 

Who did so sweetly deaths sad taste convey

Making my minde to smell my fatal day; 

                      Yet sugring the suspicion. 

Farewell deare flowers, sweetly your time ye spent, 

Fit, while ye liv'd, for smell or ornament, 

                      And after death for cures.

I follow straight without complaints or grief, 

Since if my sent be good, I care not, if 

                      It be as short as yours.

'Here will I smell my remnant out, and / My life within this band.': See Genesis 1:6-10.