A Worn Rose

Where to-day would a dainty buyer
Imbibe your scented juice,
Pale ruin with a heart of fire;
Drain your succulence with her lips,
Grown sapless from much use...
Make minister of her desire
A chalice cup where no bee sips -
        Where no wasp wanders in?

Close to her white flesh housed an hour,
        One held you... her spent form
Drew on yours for its wasted dower -
What favour could she do you more?
        Yet, of all who drink therein,
        None know it is the warm
Odorous heart of a ravished flower
Tingles so in her mouth's red core...

Lola Ridge

Lola Ridge, born Rose Emily Ridge, was an Irish-American anarchist poet and influential editor of avant-garde, feminist, and Marxist publications. Best known for her long poems and involvement in various social movements, Ridge's work addressed issues such as oppression and social justice. She published her first book of poems, "The Ghetto and Other Poems," in 1918, which gained her considerable acclaim. Ridge's poetry often focused on the lives of immigrants and the working class.

Lola Ridge

The Garden

Lola Ridge, Simple Poetry

Fuel

Lola Ridge, Simple Poetry

The Legion Of Iron

Lola Ridge, Simple Poetry

In Harness

Lola Ridge, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Garden

Bountiful Givers,
I look along the years
And see the flowers you threw...
Anemones
And sprigs of gray
Sparse heather of the rocks,
Or a wild violet
Or daisy of a daisied field...
But each your best.

I might have worn them on my breast
To wilt in the long day...
I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase
And watched each petal sallowing...
I might have held them so - mechanically -
Till the wind winnowed all the leaves
And left upon my hands
A little smear of dust.

Instead
I hid them in the soft warm loam
Of a dim shadowed place...
Deep
In a still cool grotto,
Lit only by the memories of stars
And the wide and luminous eyes
Of dead poets
That love me and that I love...
Deep... deep...
Where none...

Lola Ridge

With A Rose

In the heart of a rose
        Lies the heart of a maid;
        If you be not afraid
You will wear it.    Who knows?

In the pink of its bloom,
        Lay your lips to her cheek;
        Since a rose cannot speak,
And you gain the perfume.

If the dews on the leaf
        Are the tears from her eyes;
        If she withers and dies,
Why, you have the belief,

That a rose cannot speak,
        Though the heart of a maid
        In its bosom must fade,
And with fading must break.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Two Roses

A humble wild-rose, pink and slender,
    Was plucked and placed in a bright bouquet,
Beside a Jacqueminot's royal splendour,
    And both in my lady's boudoir lay.

Said the haughty bud, in a tone of scorning,
    "I wonder why you are called a rose?
Your leaves will fade in a single morning;
    No blood of mine in your pale cheek glows.

"Your coarse green stalk shows dust of the highway,
    You have no depths of fragrant bloom;
And what could you learn in a rustic byway
    To fit you to lie in my lady's room?

"If called to adorn her warm, white bosom,
    What have you to offer for such a place,
Beside my fragrant and splendid blossom,
    Ripe with colour and rich with grace?"

Said the sweet wild-rose, "Despite your dower
    ...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Little Picture.

Oft when pacing thro' the long and dim
Dark gallery of the Past, I pause before
A picture of which this is a copy -
Wretched at best.

How fair she look'd, standing a-tiptoe there,
Pois'd daintily upon her little feet!
The slanting sunset falling thro' the leaves
In golden glory on her smiling face,
Upturn'd towards the blushing roses; while
The breeze that came up from the river's brink,
Shook all their clusters over her fair face;
And sported with her robe, until methought,
That she stood there clad wondrously indeed!
In perfume and in music: for her dress
Made a low, rippling sound, like little waves
That break at midnight on the tawny sands -
While all the evening air of roses whisper'd.
Over her face a rich, warm blush spread slowly,
And sh...

James Barron Hope

A Dead Rose

O Rose! who dares to name thee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,
Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee
Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away
An odour up the lane to last all day,
If breathing now, unsweetened would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite thee,
And mix his glory in thy gorgeous urn,
Till beam appeared to bloom, and flower to burn,
If shining now, with not a hue would light thee.

The dew that used to wet thee,
And, white first, grow incarnadined, because
It lay upon thee where the crimson was,
If dropping now, would darken where it met thee.

The fly that lit upon thee,
To stretch the tendrils of its tiny fe...

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The Rose.

    It tossed its head at the wooing breeze;
        And the sun, like a bashful swain,
    Beamed on it through the waving frees
        With a passion all in vain, -
    For my rose laughed in a crimson glee,
    And hid in the leaves in wait for me.

    The honey-bee came there to sing
        His love through the languid hours,
    And vaunt of his hives, as a proud old king
        Might boast of his palace-towers:
    But my rose bowed in a mockery,
    And hid in the leaves in wait for me.

    The humming-bird, like a courtier gay,
        Dipped down with a dalliant song,
    And twanged his wings through the roundelay
        Of love the whole day long:
    Yet my rose turned from his minstrelsy
    And hid in the leaves in wait for m...

James Whitcomb Riley