Page:Poems - Southey (1799) volume 2.djvu/87

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THE ROSE.

Nay EDITH! spare the rose!—it lives—it lives,It feels the noon-tide sun, and drinks refresh'dThe dews of night; let not thy gentle handTear sunder its life-fibres and destroyThe sense of being!—why that infidel smile?Come, I will bribe thee to be merciful,And thou shall have a tale of other times,For I am skill'd in legendary lore,So thou wilt let it live. There was a timeEre this, the freshest sweetest flower that blooms,Bedeck'd the bowers of earth. Thou hast not heardHow first by miracle its fragrant leavesSpread to the sun their blushing loveliness.
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