130 
POETEY OF FLOWEr3. 
THE ROSE-BUD. 
I WISH the bud would never blow, 
. ’Tis prettier and purer so ; 
It blushes through its bower of green, 
And peeps above the mossy screen 
So timidly, I cannot bear 
To have it open to the air, 
I kissed it o’er and o’er again. 
As if my kisses were a chain. 
To close the quivering leaflets fast. 
And make for once—a rosebud last! 
But kisses are but feeble links 
For changeful things, like flowers, methinks; 
The wayward rose-leaves one by one. 
Uncurl’d and look’d up to the sun, 
With their sweet flushes fainter growing, 
I could not keep my bud from blowing ! 
Ah ! there upon my hand it lay. 
And faded, faded fast away ; 
You might have thought you heard it sighing, 
It looked so mournfully in dying, 
I wish it were a rose-bud now, 
I wish ’twere only hiding yet. 
With timid graee its blushing brow. 
Behind the green that sheltered it; 
I had not written were it so. 
Why would the silly rose-bud blow ? 
