No lily is whiter now for Christ or Keats.— No blue-bell lifts within green woods a head Tenderer, for æons of the heroic dead:— Within the sea no pulse of Shelley beats. Ten thousand years ago the rose was red; To-day's rose merely the same tale repeats; Where hearts have travailed and torn souls have bled, The white wild pangless rose the June-morn greets! Not for one word that Christ or Milton spake Is any blossom fairer. Their soft bloom By ripples of the Galilean lake Was nurtured, and they laughed round Milton's tomb; But if no human voice earth's primal air Had thrilled, no rosebud would have shone less fair. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GOAL by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE MAN WITH THE WOODEN LEG by KATHERINE MANSFIELD CHRISMUS ON THE PLANTATION by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR TO JOHN KEATS; SONNET by AMY LOWELL RIVALRY IN LOVE by WILLIAM WALSH (1663-1707) THE RUNNER WITH THE LOTS by LEONIE ADAMS |