THE ROSE. 



209 



That all the flowers must yield their seat, 



And lay their beauty at its feet. 



Anacreon sang its primal birth, 



Old Homer praised its form of grace, 



Catullus boasted of its charms, 



Horace, its richly tinted face : 



In fair Italia' s glowing words, 



Tasso and Metastasio sang ; 



And 'mong the groves of far Cathay 



The Persian Hafiz' accents rano*. 



The flowing tones of old Castile, 



From Camoens and Sannazar, 



And in our own pure English tongue 



It was the signal note of war ; 



In many a poet's verse its beauty shone, — 



Milton, the Bard of Avon, and the Great Unknown. 



Hig^h valued were its flowers brio-ht 



By Helle's maids of yore ; 



It graced their scenes of festive glee 



In the classic vales of Arcady, 



And all the honors bore ; 



And shed its frag^rance on the breeze 



That swept through academic grove, 



Where sages with their scholars rove — 



The land of Pericles. 



In the sunny clime of Suristan, 



On India's burning shore. 



Amid the Brahmin's sacred shades. 



Or in the wreaths that Persian maids, 



Sporting in bright and sunny glades 



In graceful beauty Avore ; 



Upon the banks of Jordan's stream 



Still flowing softly on, 



Where Judah's maidens once did lave, 



Or where the lofty cedars wave, 



On time-worn Lebanon ; 



