Poem by Henry Timrod

The Messenger Rose

If you have seen a richer glow,
Pray, tell me where your roses blow!
Look! coral-leaved! and -- mark these spots
Red staining red in crimson clots,
Like a sweet lip bitten through
In a pique. There, where that hue
Is spilt in drops, some fairy thing
Hath gashed the azure of its wing,
Or thence, perhaps, this very morn,
Plucked the splinters of a thorn.

Rose! I make thy bliss my care!
In my lady's dusky hair
Thou shalt burn this coming night,
With even a richer crimson light.
To requite me thou shalt tell --
What I might not say as well --
How I love her; how, in brief,
On a certain crimson leaf
In my bosom, is a debt
Writ in deeper crimson yet.
If she wonder what it be --
But she'll guess it, I foresee --
Tell her that I date it, pray,
From the first sweet night in May. 

1. Hymn Sung at an Anniversary of the Asylum of Orphans at Charleston
2. Hymn Sung at the Consecration of Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C.
3. A Cry to Arms
4. If I Have Graced No Single Song of Mine
5. Address Delivered at the Opening of the New Theatre at Richmond

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