While the day runs by, the speaker makes a small bouquet, planning to enjoy its scent as a companion through the rest of his life. But time beckons the flowers, and by noon they’ve cunningly withered in his hand. Rather than recoil, he takes this as a quiet, almost sweet warning. The flowers’ fleeting beauty gives him a gentle taste of death, softening the fear that usually comes with it. By the final stanza, he bids them farewell without complaint, noting they were lovely in life and useful even after drying. He resolves to follow their example directly: if his own essence, his “sent,” is good, he doesn’t mind if his life is just as short. The mood is calm and accepting—a tender reflection on mortality that feels less like mourning and more like a quiet, willing surrender.
Life — Summary
I made a posie, while the day ran by: Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band. But time did becken to the flowers, and they By noon most cunningly did steal away And wither'd in my hand.
My hand was next to them, and then my heart: I took, without more thinking, in good part Times gentle admonition: Who did so sweetly deaths sad taste convey Making my minde to smell my fatall day; Yet sugring the suspicion.
Farewell deare flowers, sweetly your time ye spent, Fit, while ye liv'd, for smell or ornament, And after death for cures. I follow straight without complaints or grief, Since if my sent be good, I care not, if It be as short as yours.