Генри Дэвид Торо (Henry David Thoreau)

Sic Vita

    I am a parcel of vain strivings tied
      By a chance bond together,
    Dangling this way and that, their links
      Were made so loose and wide,
                              Methinks,
          For milder weather.

    A bunch of violets without their roots,
      And sorrel intermixed,
    Encircled by a wisp of straw
      Once coiled about their shoots,
                              The law
          By which I’m fixed.

    A nosegay which Time clutched from out
      Those fair Elysian fields,
    With weeds and broken stems, in haste,
      Doth make the rabble rout
                              That waste
          The day he yields.

    And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,
      Drinking my juices up,
    With no root in the land
      To keep my branches green,
                              But stand
          In a bare cup.

    Some tender buds were left upon my stem
      In mimicry of life,
    But ah! the children will not know,
      Till time has withered them,
                              The woe
          With which they’re rife.

    But now I see I was not plucked for nought,
      And after in life’s vase
    Of glass set while I might survive,
      But by a kind hand brought
                              Alive
          To a strange place.

    That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,
      And by another year,
    Such as God knows, with freer air,
      More fruits and fairer flowers
                              Will bear,
          While I droop here.

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