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.