SONG OF THE ROSE. 
85 
"1 
I 
Thoughts of rapture, flushing 
Youthful poet’s cheek, 
Thoughts of glory rushing 
Forth in song to break, 
But finding the spring-tide of rapid song too 
weak. 
Yet, oh ! festal rose, 
I have seen thee lying 
In thy bright repose 
Pillow’d with the dying, 
Thy crimson by the life’s quick blood was 
flying. 
Summer, hope, and love 
O’er that bed of pain, 
Meet in thee, yet wove 
Too, too frail a claim 
In its embracing links the lovely to detain. 
Smilest thou, gorgeous flower ?— 
O ! within the spells 
Of thy beauty’s power 
Something dimly dwells, 
At variance with a world of sorrows and fare¬ 
wells. 
