O wayward rose, why dost thou wreathe so high,
Wasting thyself in sweet-breath'd ecstasy?
"The pulses of the wind my life uplift,
And through my sprays I feel the sunlight sift;
"And all my fibres, in a quick consent
Entwined, aspire to fill their heavenward bent.
"I feel the shaking of the far-off sea,
And all things growing blend their life with me:
"When men and women on me look, there glows
Within my veins a life not of the rose.
"Then let me grow, until I touch the sky,
And let me grow and grow until I die!"
So, every year, the sweet rose shooteth higher,
And scales the roof upon its wings of fire,
And pricks the air, in lovely discontent,
With thorns that question still of its intent.
But when it reached the roof-tree, there it clung,
Nor ever farther up its blossoms flung.
O wayward rose, why hast thou ceased to climb?
Hast thou forgot the ardor of thy prime?
"O hearken!" - thus the rose-spray, listening, -
"With what weird music sweet these full hearts ring!
"What mazy ripples of deep, eddying sound,
Rise, touch the roof-tree old, and drift around,
"Bearing aloft the burden musical
Of joys and griefs from human hearts that fall!
"Green stem and fair, flush'd circle I will lay
Along the roof, and listen here alway;
"For rose and tree, and every leafy growth
That toward the sky unfolds with spiry blowth,
"No purpose hath save this, to breathe a grace
O'er men, and in men's hearts to seek a place.
"Therefore, O poet, thou who gav'st to me
The homage of thy humble sympathy,
"No longer vest thy verse in rose-leaves frail: -
Let the heart's voice loud through thy p'an wail!"
* * * * *
Lo, at my feet the wind of autumn throws
A hundred turbulent blossoms of the rose,
Full of the voices of the sea and grove
And air, and full of hidden, murmured love,
And warm with passion through the roof-tree sent;
Dew-drenched with tears; - all in one wild gush spent!