Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Thomas Love Peacock (1785–1866)

The Flower of Love (from Melincourt)

’TIS said the rose is Love’s own flower,

Its blush so bright, its thorns so many;

And winter on its bloom has power,

But has not on its sweetness any.

For though young Love’s ethereal rose

Will droop on Age’s wintry bosom,

Yet still its faded leaves disclose

The fragrance of their earliest blossom.

But ah! the fragrance lingering there

Is like the sweets that mournful duty

Bestows with sadly-soothing care,

To deck the grave of bloom and beauty.

For when its leaves are shrunk and dry,

Its blush extinct, to kindle never,

That fragrance is but Memory’s sigh,

That breathes of pleasures past for ever.

Why did not Love the amaranth choose,

That bears no thorns, and cannot perish?

Alas! no sweets its flowers diffuse,

And only sweets Love’s life can cherish.

But be the rose and amaranth twined,

And Love, their mingled powers assuming,

Shall round his brows a chaplet bind,

For ever sweet, for ever blooming.