Classic Poem

What are you, rose? — lips that lean back to meet
The June-long kiss of the sun? or fervid wine
Born of dark pangs, though trod out by the feet

Of spring's wild votaries; will the breeze incline
His waving curls and drink with tremulous hand,
Then lurch away to drowse at last supine

On yielding grasses? As your leaves expand,
Rose, you repay the dower that nature brought:
The sun begot you, and the warm breeze fanned

Your widening buds; till earth, whose womb was fraught
So patiently, might flaunt in recompense
A living ruby. Deeper must be sought

Your soul, that perfume of the inward sense
Which men call beauty, that red kiss of joy
Which bathes my being, — who knows how or whence? —

Till I am steeped in rapture. No mere toy
Of subterranean looms are you, sweet rose,
That frost or drouth or canker may destroy.

The color that exhales, the scent that glows,
Your many-petaled indivisible grace; —
Like mists the dawn-light wears but later throws

Aside — what were they but a withered face,
A starless night, a chord that felt no thrill
Of passion's fingers; could I neither trace

The light that from your bosom throbs to fill
Your emerald shrine with awe, nor dream some tone
From which your deep thoughts limpidly distil

As music. Love is roused by love alone;
You, rose, unbarring paradise to me,
Are therefore God. How could He else be known

To mortals than in sensuous rhapsody?
Naught that is told us may we comprehend
Until we taste and breathe and hear and see

And handle. Rose, in you the ineffable Friend
Has three persuasive voices: perfume, touch
And color. Though your song may seem to end

To-night, your petals whirled off in the clutch
Of winds, like wounded doves that hawks pursue;
Your beauty shall for me be ever such

As at this moment, when love speaks in you.
You blossom in my breast, as warm, as red
As my own heart. And my heart blossoms, too,

In God's heart. Through all time and space are spread
Roses unfading, ever-fragrant, more
And more; across the earth, and overhead,

Reflected on the ocean's tranquil floor;
Until the universe is one vast rose,
Nature and man, with God the flaming core
Whence love to every crimson petal flows.