Maria Jane Jewsbury

I Love Thee Rose

   Ah! see the virgin rose, how sweetly she
   Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty,
   That fairer seems the less ye see her may!
   Lo! see soon after, how more bold and free
   Her bared bosom she doth broad display;
   Lo! see soon after how she fades and falls away

                                        Spenser.

I love thee rose the flower of many a land,
Lovely in each ,the gentle and the gay!
From the coy stranger of a foreign strand,
To happy England's home born wilding-spray.
Flower of the fancy! waking memories bland
In hearts where age hath reared its empire grey,
And calling up for youth's all joyous band,
Hopes, like thy blossoms doomed to fade away.
I love thee  rose for thou hast tales to tell,
As many-hued, and various as thy race;
Thou hast of smiles and tears the mingled spell,
Of sorrow's fantasies and pleasure's grace:
Thou art the flower when mirth and music swell,
Culled for her brow where loveliness hath place;
And thou art culled when solemn shroud and knell
Proclaim death's darkness settled on her face.
I love thee rose for in thy bosom lie
Treasures unrecked of by the plundering bee:
When thy fair leaves droop in the storm and die,
Or by rude hands are severed from the tree,
And thou dost meekly lay thy beauty by,
To yield the spoiler sweets immortally
Thou giv'st a lesson to the musing eye,
Of deathless love and gentle constancy.
I love thee rose for that which some may scorn;
For that which marks thee but an earthly flower;
Oh! many a moral hangs upon thy thorn,
And sorrowing hearts full often prove their power
In love misplaced, and friendship worldly-born,
In human ills, of human sin the dower;
Yet, rose, for us there comes a glorious morn,
A land of fadeless bloom, and many a thornless bower.