'Twas a yellow rose, By that south window of the little house, My cousin Romney gathered with his hand On all my birthdays, for me. save the last; And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough, For roses to stay after.

A white rosebud for a guerdon.

"For if I wait," said she, "Till time for roses be,-- For the moss-rose and the musk-rose, Maiden-blush and royal-dusk rose,-- "What glory then for me In such a company?-- Roses plenty, roses plenty And one nightingale for twenty?"

And thus, what can we do, Poor rose and poet too, Who both antedate our mission In an unprepared season?

Red as a rose of Harpocrate.

O rose, who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet, But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubblewheat,-- Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.