ROSE. 
*43 
To cull the timid floweret thence, 
And wipe, with tender hand, away, 
The tear that on its blushes lay ! 
’Tis sweet to hold the infant stems, 
Yet drooping with Aurora’s gems, 
And fresh inhale the spicy sighs 
That from the weeping buds arise. 
When revel reigns, when mirth is high, 
And Bacchus beams in every eye, 
Our rosy fillets scent exhale, 
And fill with balm the fainting gale ! 
Oh, there is naught in nature bright 
Where Roses do not shed their light! 
When Morning paints the orient skies, 
Her fingers burn with roseate dyes, 
And when, at length, with pale decline, 
Its florid beauties fade and pine, 
Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath 
Diffuses odour e’en in death ! 
O, whence could such a plant have sprung ? 
Attend—for thus the tale is sung:— 
When humid from the silvery stream, 
Effusing beauty’s warmest beam, 
Venus appeared in flushing hues, 
Mellowed by ocean’s briny dews; 
When in the starry courts above, 
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove 
Disclosed the nymph of azure glance— 
The nymph who shakes the martial lance — 
Then, then, in strange eventful hour, 
The earth produced an infant flower, 
Which sprung with blushing tinctures dressed, 
And wantoned o’er its parent breast. 
