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Home  »  The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse  »  Philip Bourke Marston (1850–1887)

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

The Rose and the Wind

Philip Bourke Marston (1850–1887)

DAWN
The Rose
WHEN, think you, comes the Wind,

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?

The Beech
Perchance for you too soon.

The Rose
If not, how could I live until the noon?

What, think you, Beech-tree, makes the Wind delay?

Why comes he not at breaking of the day?

The Beech
Hush, child, and, like the Lily, go to sleep.

The Rose
You know I cannot.

The Beech
Nay, then, do not weep.

(After a pause!)
Your lover comes: be happy now, O Rose!

He softly through my bending branches goes.

Soon he shall come, and you shall feel his kiss.

The Rose
Already my flush’d heart grows faint with bliss;

Love, I have long’d for you through all the night.

The Wind
And I to kiss your petals warm and bright.

The Rose
Laugh round me, Love, and kiss me; it is well.

Nay, have no fear, the Lily will not tell.

MORNING
The Rose
’Twas dawn when first you came; and now the sun

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.

The Wind
Nay, you must wake, Love, from this childish dream.

The Rose
’Tis you, Love, who seem changed; your laugh is loud,

And ’neath your stormy kiss my head is bow’d.

O Love, O Wind, a space will you not spare?

The Wind
Not while your petals are so soft and fair.

The Rose
My buds are blind with leaves, they cannot see,—

O Love, O Wind, will you not pity me?

EVENING
The Beech
O Wind, a word with you before you pass;

What did you to the Rose that on the grass

Broken she lies and pale, who loved you so?

The Wind
Roses must live and love, and winds must blow.