| Fuess and Stearns, comps. The Little Book of Society Verse. 1922. | | | | The Rose | | By William Cowper |
| | | THE ROSE had been wash’d, just wash’d in a shower, | |
| Which Mary to Anna conveyed; | |
| The plentiful moisture encumber’d the flower | |
| And weigh’d down its beautiful head. | |
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| The cup was all fill’d, and the leaves were all wet, | 5 |
| And it seem’d, to a fanciful view, | |
| To weep for the bud it had left with regret | |
| On the flourishing bush where it grew. | |
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| I hastily seized it, unfit as it was | |
| For a nosegay, so dripping and drown’d, | 10 |
| And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas! | |
| I snapp’d it, it fell to the ground. | |
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| “And such,” I exclaim’d, “is the pitiless part | |
| Some act by the delicate mind, | |
| Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart | 15 |
| Already to sorrow resign’d. | |
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| “This elegant rose, had I shaken it less, | |
| Might have bloom’d with its owner awhile; | |
| And the tear that is wiped with a little address, | |
| May be follow’d perhaps by a smile.” | 20 | | | |
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