Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
The Rose and the WindPhilip Bourke Marston (18501887)
The Rose
The Wind that kisses me and is so kind?
Lo, how the Lily sleeps! her sleep is light;
Would I were like the Lily, pale and white!
Will the Wind come?
What, think you, Beech-tree, makes the Wind delay?
Why comes he not at breaking of the day?
He softly through my bending branches goes.
Soon he shall come, and you shall feel his kiss.
Love, I have long’d for you through all the night.
Nay, have no fear, the Lily will not tell.
The Rose
Shines brightly and the dews of dawn are done.
’Tis well you take me so in your embrace;
But lay me back again into my place,
For I am worn, perhaps with bliss extreme.
And ’neath your stormy kiss my head is bow’d.
O Love, O Wind, a space will you not spare?
O Love, O Wind, will you not pity me?
The Beech
What did you to the Rose that on the grass
Broken she lies and pale, who loved you so?