MILD is the parting year, and sweet
Walter Savage Landor
Child of a day, thou knowest not
God scatters beauty as he scatters flowers
In spring and summer winds may blow,
MOTHER, I cannot mind my wheel;
Struggling, and faint, and fainter didst thou wane,
To my ninth decade I have tottered on,
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
One lovely name adorns my song,
Ah, what avails the sceptred race!
Soon, O Ianthe! life is o'er,
Smiles soon abate; the boisterous throes
When the buds began to burst,