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Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Latent

By Kate Putnam Osgood (1841–1910)

WITHOUT the garden wall it grows,

A flowerless tree;

Wrung by the restless blast that blows

Across the sea.

Forgotten of the fickle Spring

The scanty leaves droop, withering.

Scarce would it seem—poor, sapless thing!—

A rose to be.

Yet must the frail and faded spray

A rose remain,

Though bitter-blowing winds to-day

Its growth restrain.

Somewhere, however these deny,

The color and the fragrance lie;

Somewhere the perfect flower its dry,

Dull stalks contain.

If in a kindlier soil perchance

The root should grow,

Where dews would fall, and sunbeams glance,

And soft airs flow,

Fair as the flower the garden shows

The leaf might spring, the bud unclose.

From out the calyx of a rose

A rose will blow!