I recall a poem from years and years ago, which involved a man, perhaps sitting in a tower, looking at young ladies below, wishing to tell them that their youth would soon pass and that their beauty could not compare to an elderly love of his, whose looks had faded but still remained.
It was not “Gather ye rosebuds,” but that is about all I know. Can anybody help me?
I might be able to point you in the right direction. The fact that you felt it necessary to disqualify “Gather Ye Rosebuds” suggests a poet from the Elizabethan era. Looking up Robert Herrick may prove fruitful.
Blue Girls, by John Crowe Ransom
Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward
Under the towers of your seminary,
Go listen to your teachers old and contrary
Without believing a word.
Tie the white fillets then about your hair
And think no more of what will come to pass
Than bluebirds that go walking in the grass
And chattering on the air.
Practise your beauty, blue girls, before it fall;
And I will cry with my loud lips and publish
Beauty which all our power shall never establish,
It is so frail.
For I could tell you a story which is true;
I know a woman with a terrible tongue,
Blear eyes fallen from blue,
All her perfections tarnished - yet it is not long
Since she was lovelier than any of you.