“Sic Vita”
by Henry D. Thoreau
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 naught,
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 fair
flowers
Will bear,
While I droop here.
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