the view from here

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 whcih TIme clutched out

Those fair Elysian fields

WIth weeds and broken stems, in hast,

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 stsem

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 fairer flowers

Will bear,

While I droop here.

(Henry David Thoreau)