 | Poems by Frances Sargent Osgood |  |
355
WHY WILL A ROSE-BUD BLOW?
I wish the bud would never blow,'Tis prettier and purer so;
It blushes through its bower of green,
And peeps above the mossy screen
So timidly, I cannot bear
To have it open to the air.
I kiss'd it o'er and o'er again,
As if my kisses were a chain
To close the quivering leaflets fast,
And make for once a rose-bud last!
But kisses are but feeble links
For changeful things, like flowers, methinks;
The wayward rose leaves, one by one,
Uncurl'd and look'd up to the sun,
With their sweet flushes fainter growing:
I could not keep my bud from blowing!
Ah! there upon my hand it lay,
And faded, faded fast away;
356
It look'd so mournfully in dying.
I wish it were a rose-bud now,
I wish 'twere only hiding yet,
With timid grace, its blushing brow,
Behind the green that shelter'd it.
I had not written were it so;
Why would the silly rose-bud blow?
| Poems by Frances Sargent Osgood | |