Poem by Madison Julius Cawein

A Blown Rose

    Lay but a finger on
     That pallid petal sweet,
    It trembles gray and wan
     Beneath the passing feet.

    But soft! blown rose, we know
     A merriment of bloom,
    A life of sturdy glow, -
     But no such dear perfume.

    As some good bard, whose page
     Of life with beauty's fraught,
    Grays on to ripe old age
     Sweet-mellowed through with thought.

    So when his hoary head
     Is wept into the tomb,
    The mind, which is not dead,
     Sheds round it rare perfume.

1. In the Mountains
2. The Iron Cross
3. Above the Vales
4. Zero
5. Communicants

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