C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Death in Youth

I NOTED once a fair Castilian rose,

All blushing with the bloom of life new-born.

Flaunt lovingly her beauty to the morn,

Whose whisper wooed the coy bud to unclose

Her dewy petals to his kiss. “Thy foes,”

I cried, “the cankering elves of darkness, scorn!

The joys of purity thy day adorn,

And guard thee through the night’s despoiling woes.

And thus, though withering Death may touch thy leaf,

And in his dusky veil thy fragrance fold,

Thy youth and beauty ever smile at grief.

Thy little life and story quickly told

Make blest the teaching of a sweet belief:

’Tis fairer fortune to die young than old.”