Decay

"An age that melts with unperceivd decay, And glides in modest innocence away."

"Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes falln away. Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day."

"As is the bud bit with an envious worm, Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air, Or dedicate his beauty to the sun."

"In the sweetest bud The eating canker dwells."

"A gilded halo hovering round decay."

"The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he; His time is spent."

"I shall be like that tree,—I shall die at the top."

"There seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas; even of those which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive, so that if they be not sometimes renewed by repeated exercises of the senses, or reflection on those kinds of objects which at first occasioned them, the print wears out, and at last there remains nothing to be seen."

"All thats bright must fade,— The brightest still the fleetest; All thats sweet was made But to be lost when sweetest."

"A worm is in the bud of youth, And at the root of age."

"He that loves a rosy cheek, Or a coral lip admires, Or from star-like eyes doth seek Fuel to maintain his fires;— As old Time makes these decay, So his flames must waste away."