Classic Poem

Come, lyrist! tune thy harp, and play
Responsive to my vocal lay;
Gently touch it while I sing
The rose, the glory of the spring.
To heaven the rose in fragrance flies,
The sweetest incense of the skies.
Thee, joy of earth! when vernal hours
Pour forth a blooming waste of flow'rs,
The gayly-smiling graces wear
A trophy in their flowing hair;
Thee, Venus, queen of beauty loves,
And, crown'd with thee, more graceful moves.
In fabled song and tuneful lays,
Their fav'rite rose the Muses praise.
To pluck the rose the virgin-train
With blood their pretty fingers stain,
Nor dread the pointed terrors round
That threaten and inflict a wound.
See how they wave the charming toy,
Now kiss, now snuff the fragrant joy!
The rose the poets strive to praise,
And for it would exchange their bays:
O! ever to the sprightly feast
Admitted, welcome, pleasing guest!
But chiefly when the goblet flows,
And rosy wreathes adorn our brows.
Lovely, smiling rose! how sweet
The object where thy beauties meet!
Aurora with a blushing ray
And rosy fingers spreads the day:
The graces more enchanting show
When rosy blushes paint their snow;
And ev'ry pleas'd beholder seeks
The rose in Cytherea's cheeks.
When pain afflicts or sickness grieves
Its juice the drooping heart relieves
And, after death, its odours shed
A pleasing fragrance o'er the dead:
And when its with'ring charms decay,
And sinking, fading, die away,
Triumphant, o'er the rage of time
It keeps the fragrance of its prime.
Come, lyrist! join to sing the birth
Of this sweet offspring of the earth.
When Venus from the ocean's bed
Rais'd o'er the waves her lovely head;
When warlike Pallas sprung from Jove
Tremendous to the pow'rs above,
To grace the world the teeming earth
Gave the fragrant infant birth;
And " This, " she cry'd, " I this ordain
" My fav'rite queen of flow'rs to reign! "
But first the assembled gods debate
The future wonder to create:
Agreed at length, from heaven they threw
A drop of rich nectareous dew;
A bramble-stem the drop receives,
And straight the rose adorns the leaves.
The gods to Bacchus gave the flow'r,
To grace him in the genial hour.