Classic Poem

But few they were who came to see
The Century-Plant in flower:
Ten cents admission — price you pay
For bon-bons of the hour.

In strange inert blank unconcern
Of wild things at the Zoo,
The patriarch let the sight-seers stare —
Nor recked who came to view.

But lone at night the garland sighed
While moaned the aged stem:
" At last, at last! but joy and pride
What part have I with them?

Let be the dearth that kept me back
Now long from wreath decreed;
But, Ah, ye Roses that have passed
Accounting me a weed![ " ]