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 me.

    The firefly came in the twilight dim
        My red, red rose to woo -
    Till quenched was the flame of love in him,
        And the light of his lantern too,
    As my rose wept with dew-drops three
    And hid in the leaves in wait for me.

    And I said: I will cult my own sweet rose -
        Some day I will claim as mine
    The priceless worth of the flower that knows
        No change, but a bloom divine -
    The bloom of a fadeless constancy
    That hides in the leaves in wait for me!

    But time passed by in a strange disguise,
        And I marked it not, but lay
    In a lazy dream, with drowsy eyes,
        Till the summer slipped away,
    And a chill wind sang in a minor key:
    "Where is the rose that waits for thee?"

            *        *        *        *        *

    I dream to-day, o'er a purple stain
        Of bloom on a withered stalk,
    Pelted down by the autumn rain
        In the dust of the garden-walk,
    That an Angel-rose in the world to be
    Will hide in the leaves in wait for me.