ROSE. 
135 
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 
Pillowed with the dying, 
Thy crimson by the life’s quick blood was flying. 
Summer, hope, and love, 
O’er that bed of pain, 
Met in thee, yet wove 
Too, too frail a chain 
In its embracing links the lovely to detain. 
Smil’st thou, gorgeous flower ?— 
Oh ! within the spells 
Of thy beauty’s power 
Something dimly dwells, 
At variance with a world of sorrows and farewells. 
All the soul forth flowing 
In that rich perfume, 
All the proud life glowing 
In that radiant bloom, 
Have they no place but here, beneath th’ o’ershadowing 
tomb ? 
