Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridall of the earth and skie :
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night ;
For thou must die.Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye:
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.Sweet spring! full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My musick shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.Onely a sweet and vertuous soul,
Like season’d timber, never gives ;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
George Herbert, ‘Vertue’, 1663