"What, were ye born to be An hour or half's delight, And so to bid good-night? 'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth Merely to show your worth, And lose you quite. "But you are lovely leaves, where we May read how soon things have Their end, though ne'er so brave: And after they have shown their pride Like you, awhile, they glide Into the grave."* -- * `Palgrave', p. 89. -- Much like this last piece in import, and scarcely inferior to it in execution, is `My life is like the summer rose' of Richard Henry Wilde, which is familiar to every one. Paul Hamilton Hayne's `The Red and the White Rose' (`Poems', pp. 231-232) is an interesting dialogue, which the author concludes by making the former an "earthly queen" and the latter a "heaven-bound votaress". Mrs. Browning's `A Lay of the Early Rose' shows that we are not to strive "for the dole of praise." To ----, with a Rose I asked my heart to say [1] Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay Upon my Lady's natal day. Then said my heart to me: `Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee What fits thy Love most lovingly.' This gift that learning shows; For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes, I send a rose unto a Rose. ____ Philadelphia, 1876. Notes: To ----, with a Rose This poem was sent to Mrs. Gibson Peacock, of Philadelphia, who was one of Mr. Lanier's kindest and most appreciative friends. The poet's letters to Mr. and Mrs. Peacock have recently been published in `The Atlantic' (see `Thayer' in `Bibliography'). Of the numerous rose-compliments in English I can here specify but a few. One of the prettiest is that by Henry Constable (`Saintsbury', p. 113): "My Lady's presence makes the Roses red, Because to see her lips they blush for shame." Carew's compliment is hardly equal to his morals (`Gosse', p. 101): "Ask me no more where Jove bestows, When June is past, the fading rose; For in your beauty's orient deep These flowers, as in their causes, sleep." Few better things have been written than this, the second stanza of Jonson's `Drink to me only with thine eyes' (`Gosse', p. 80): "I sent thee late a rosy wreath, Not so much honouring thee As giving it a hope that there It could not withered be. But thou thereon did'st only breathe, And sent'st it back to me; Since when it grows and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee."* Even more felicitous, perhaps, is Waller's `Go, lovely rose!' which is at once a compliment and a moral (`Gosse', p. 134): "Go, lovely rose Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be.