Henry David Thoreau



                   Sic Vita


                   I am a parcel of vain strivings tied 
                     By a chance bond together, 
                   Dangling this way and that, their links 
                     Were made so loose and wide, 
                         Methinks, 
                     For milder weather. 

                   A bunch of violets without their roots, 
                     And sorrel intermixed, 
                   Encircled by a wisp of straw 
                     Once coiled about their shoots, 
                         The law 
                     By which I'm fixed. 

                   A nosegay which Time clutched from out 
                     Those fair Elysian fields, 
                   With weeds and broken stems, in haste, 
                     Doth make the rabble rout 
                         That waste 
                     The day he yields. 

                   And here I bloom for a short hour unseen, 
                     Drinking my juices up, 
                   With no root in the land 
                     To keep my branches green, 
                         But stand 
                     In a bare cup. 

                   Some tender buds were left upon my stem 
                     In mimicry of life, 
                   But ah! the children will not know, 
                     Till time has withered them, 
                         The woe 
                     With which they're rife. 

                   But now I see I was not plucked for naught, 
                     And after in life's vase 
                   Of glass set while I might survive, 
                     But by a kind hand brought 
                         Alive 
                   To a strange place. 

                   That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours, 
                     And by another year, 
                   Such as God knows, with freer air, 
                     More fruits and fairer flowers 
                         Will bear, 
                     While I droop here.


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