
66 POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
THE ROSE-BUD. 
I wisu the bud would never blow, 
*Tis prettier and purer 80; 
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. 
} T kissed it o’er and o’er again, 
As if my kisses were a chain, 
To close the quivering leafiets 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 grace its blushing brow, 
Behind the green that sheltered it ; 
I had not written were it so, 
Why would the silly rose-bud blow ? 

