Ah, God, that sweet things should decline

Ah, Lalage! while life is ours, Hoard not thy beauty rose and white, But pluck the pretty, fleeting flowers That deck our little path of light: For all too soon we twain shall tread The bitter pastures of the dead:

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate: I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate.They are not long, the days of wine and roses; Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then …

Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild, But there, beside the altar, there, is rest.

Say, doth she weep for very wantonness? Or is it that she dimly doth foresee Across her youth the joys grow less and less, The burden of the days that are to be: Autumn and withered leaves and vanity And winter bringing end in barrenness.

I understand that absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine; And I was desolate and sick of an old passion.