The Thursday Poem

Young Woman Reading by a Window - Delphin Enjolras


Virtue

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright!
The bridal of the earth and sky -
The dew shall weep they fall tonight;
For thou must die.

Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.

Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.

Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like season'd timber, never gives;
But though the whole world tune to coal,
Then chiefly lives.

George Herbert
(3rd April 1593 - 3rd March 1633)

from the book: Poem for the Day One