Poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford

The Rose

The Rose was given to man for this:
  He, sudden seeing it in later years,
Should swift remember Love's first lingering kiss
  And Grief's last lingering tears;
Or, being blind, should feel its yearning soul
  Knit all its piercing perfume round his own,
Till he should see on memory's ample scroll
  All roses he had known;

Or, being hard, perchance his finger-tips
  Careless might touch the satin of its cup,
And he should feel a dead babe's budding lips
  To his lips lifted up;

Or, being deaf and smitten with its star,
  Should, on a sudden, almost hear a lark
Rush singing up­the nightingale afar
  Sing through the dew-bright dark;

Or, sorrow-lost in paths that round and round
  Circle old graves, its keen and vital breath
Should call to him within the yew's bleak bound
  Of Life, and not of Death.

1. Late Loved - Well Loved
2. The Camp of Souls
3. A Battle
4. Bouche-Mignonne
5. How Deacon Fry Bought a “Duchess”

Sara Teasdale The Rose ("BENEATH my chamber window")

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