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Home  »  A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895  »  The Rose and the Wind

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Philip Bourke Marston 1850–87

The Rose and the Wind

DAWN
The Rose

WHEN, think you, comes the Wind,

The Wind that kisses me and is so kind?

Lo, how the Lily sleeps! her sleep is light;

Would I were like the Lily, pale and white!

Will the Wind come?

The Beech

Perchance for you too soon.

The Rose

If not, how could I live until the noon?

What, think you, Beech-tree, makes the Wind delay?

Why comes he not at breaking of the day?

The Beech

Hush, child, and, like the Lily, go to sleep.

The Rose

You know I cannot.

The Beech

Nay, then, do not weep.

(After a pause)

Your lover comes, be happy now, O Rose!

He softly through my bending branches goes.

Soon he shall come, and you shall feel his kiss.

The Rose

Already my flush’d heart grows faint with bliss;

Love, I have long’d for you through all the night.

The Wind

And I to kiss your petals warm and bright.

The Rose

Laugh round me, Love, and kiss me; it is well.

Nay, have no fear, the Lily will not tell.

MORNING
The Rose

’T was dawn when first you came; and now the sun

Shines brightly and the dews of dawn are done.

’T is well you take me so in your embrace;

But lay me back again into my place,

For I am worn, perhaps with bliss extreme.

The Wind

Nay, you must wake, Love, from this childish dream.

The Rose

’T is you, Love, who seem changed; your laugh is loud,

And ’neath your stormy kiss my head is bow’d

O Love, O Wind, a space will you not spare?

The Wind

Not while your petals are so soft and fair.

The Rose

My buds are blind with leaves, they cannot see,—

O Love, O Wind, will you not pity me?

EVENING
The Beech

O Wind, a word with you before you pass;

What did you to the Rose that on the grass

Broken she lies and pale, who lov’d you so?

The Wind

Roses must live and love, and winds must blow.