 | Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne |  |
XXV.
THE LAST OF THE ROSES.
A royal rose! A rose how darkly red!A proud, voluptuous, full blown flower, that sways
Her sceptre o'er the wind-swept garden-ways,
With mantling cheek and bold, imperious head!
Alone she lifts above yon desolate bed
A beauty past all terms of raptured praise,
The statelier that she rules in autumn days,
When every rival flower is dimmed or dead!
A haughty Cleopatra! there she smiles,
Unwitting that her sovereign love is lost—
Her Antony! a gorgeous sunflower bloom!
Ah! vain henceforth her beauty and sweet wiles!
Queen! art thou blind? Thy lord hath met his doom;
His Actium came with winter's vanguard—Frost!
| Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne | |