| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| De Rosis Hibernis |
| | | Sir Edmund William Gosse (1849–1928) |
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| AMBITIOUS Nile, thy banks deplore | |
| Their Flavian patron’s deep decay; | |
| Thy Memphian pilot laughs no more | |
| To see the flower-boat float away; | |
| Thy winter-roses once were twined | 5 |
| Across the gala-streets of Rome, | |
| And thou, like Omphale, couldst bind | |
| The vanquished victor in his home. | |
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| But if the barge that brought thy store | |
| Had foundered in the Lybian deep, | 10 |
| It had not slain thy glory more, | |
| Nor plunged thy rose in salter sleep; | |
| Nor gods nor Cæsars wait thee now, | |
| No jealous Pæstum dreads thy spring, | |
| Thy flower enfolds no augur’s brow, | 15 |
| Nor gives thy poet strength to sing. | |
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| Yet, surely, when the winds are low, | |
| And heaven is all alive with stars, | |
| Thy conscious roses still must glow | |
| Above thy dreaming nenuphars; | 20 |
| They recollect their high estate, | |
| The Roman honors they have known, | |
| And while they ponder Cæsar’s fate | |
| They cease to marvel at their own. | |
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