Poems, by Robert Louis Stevenson, hitherto unpublished/Gather ye roses while ye may
GATHER YE ROSES WHILE YE MAY
1875
This is another one of Stevenson's poems written in France, and a charming bit of verse experimentation, where Stevenson weaves the famous lines of Robert Herrick into a more concrete form of old French poetry.
GATHER YE ROSES WHILE YE MAY
Gather ye roses while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying;
A world where beauty fleets away
Is no world for denying.
Come lads and lasses, fall to play
Lose no more time in sighing.
The very flowers you pluck today,
Tomorrow will be dying;
And all the flowers are crying,
And all the leaves have tongues to say,—
Gather ye roses while ye may.