The Rose.

It tossed its head at the wooing breeze;             And the sun, like a bashful swain,         Beamed on it through the waving frees             With a passion all in vain, -         For my rose laughed in a crimson glee,         And hid in the leaves in wait for me.         The honey-bee came there to sing             His love through the languid hours,         And vaunt of his hives, as a proud old king             Might boast of his palace-towers:         But my rose bowed in a mockery,         And hid in the leaves in wait for me.         The humming-bird, like a courtier gay,             Dipped down with a dalliant song,         And twanged his wings through the roundelay             Of love the whole day long:         Yet my rose turned from his minstrelsy         And hid in the leaves in wait for me.         The firefly came in the twilight dim             My red, red rose to woo -         Till quenched was the flame of love in him,             And the light of his lantern too,         As my rose wept with dew-drops three         And hid in the leaves in wait for me.         And I said: I will cult my own sweet rose -             Some day I will claim as mine         The priceless worth of the flower that knows             No change, but a bloom divine -         The bloom of a fadeless constancy         That hides in the leaves in wait for me!         But time passed by in a strange disguise,             And I marked it not, but lay         In a lazy dream, with drowsy eyes,             Till the summer slipped away,         And a chill wind sang in a minor key:         "Where is the rose that waits for thee?"                  *         *         *         *         *         I dream to-day, o'er a purple stain             Of bloom on a withered stalk,         Pelted down by the autumn rain             In the dust of the garden-walk,         That an Angel-rose in the world to be         Will hide in the leaves in wait for me.