Poetry Archives

Ye have been fresh and green,
  Ye have been fill’d with flowers,
And ye the walks have been
  Where maids have spent their hours.

You have beheld how they
  With wicker arks did come
To kiss and bear away
  The richer cowslips home.

You’ve heard them sweetly sing,
  And seen them in a round:
Each virgin like a spring,
  With honeysuckles crown’d.

But now we see none here
  Whose silv’ry feet did tread
And with dishevell’d hair
  Adorn’d this smoother mead.

Like unthrifts, having spent
  Your stock and needy grown,
You’re left here to lament
  Your poor estates, alone.