May To April[339]

Without your showers, I breed no flowers, Each field a barren waste appears; If you don't weep, my blossoms sleep, They take such pleasures in your tears.

As your decay made room for May, So I must part with all that's mine: My balmy breeze, my blooming trees To torrid suns their sweets resign!

O'er April dead, my shades I spread: To her I owe my dress so gay-- Of daughters three, it falls on me To close our triumphs on one day:

Thus, to repose, all Nature goes; Month after month must find its doom: Time on the wing, May ends the Spring, And Summer dances on her tomb!

Philadelphia, April 16, 1787. Text from the edition of 1809.