SAID the child to the rose: "I would that I Might rest in a pretty garden close, To feel the wind as it brushes by, To play with every flower that grows; It must be sweet in the summer-tide To watch the buds as they open wide," Said the child to the rose. Said the rose to the child: "And I would be, Like you, a creature sweet and mild, Safe-housed from weathers winterly And warmed with love all undefiled; 'Tis cold for sleep when the night is near, And the time till morning goes full drear," Said the rose to the child. They had their will: for the rose one day Was plucked and worn in a ballroom gay, Where the air was stifling hot, -- and so It shrunk and died in the fierce, brief glow. The child, a woman pinched and white, In after years, on a winter's night, Lay in the garden, took her rest, Dead, with a baby at her breast. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PLAYERS ASK FOR A BLESSING ON THE PSALTERIES AND ON THEMSELVES by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS HYMNS OF THE MARSHES: SUNRISE by SIDNEY LANIER THE QUEEN IN FRANCE; AN ANCIENT SCOTTISH BALLAD by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN LINES WRITTEN ... ONE WHO HAD WATCHED .. AMERICAN & FRENCH REVOLUTIONS by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES THE BURIAL OF ROBERT BROWNING by KATHERINE HARRIS BRADLEY |