Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A BOWL OF ROSES by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Poet Analysis

First Line: IT WAS A BOWL OF ROSES
Last Line: O, WAS IT YOU?
Subject(s): FLOWERS; ROSES;
It was a bowl of roses:
There in the light they lay,
Languishing, glorying, glowing
Their life away.

And the soul of them rose like a presence,
Into me crept and grew,
And filled me with something -- some one --
O, was it you?



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