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THE LOVER’S OFFERING, 
As birds oft sing their sweetest song, 
When every leaf hath left the tree ; 
So when thy bloom hath vanished long, 
My heart shall fonder cling to thee ! 
THE MUSK ROSE. 
As Venus wander’d ’midst the Idalian bower, 
And watch’d the loves and graoes round her play, 
She pluck’d a Musk Rose from its dew-bent 
spray; 
“And this,” she cried, “shall be my favourite 
flower, 
For o’er its crimson leaflets I will shower 
Dissolving sweets, to steal the soul away.” 
Roscoe. 
As late I rambled in the happy fields, 
What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew 
From its lush clover covert,—when anew 
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields— 
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields, 
A fresh blown Musk Rose; ’twas the first that 
threw 
Its sweets upon the summer ; graceful it grew, 
As is the wand that Queen Titania wields; 
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy, 
I thought the garden Rose it far excell’d. 
Keats 
