Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO A PERSIAN ROSE, by WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO A PERSIAN ROSE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the world's garden close
Last Line: Neath those hot skies.
Subject(s): Flowers; Roses


IN the world's garden close,
Where a wild Eden blows,
Where the earth's treasury
Hoards by the Arat sea,
You grew, a rose.
In the flushed lyric dawn,
Poignant with scented heat,
Gold dew you fed upon,
Gleaming like crystals- sweet
Stars of the lawn.
From all the islands blent,
One thousand essences,
Odors of ravishment
Culled from the Eastern seas
Filled you with scent.
All the East's lavishness
Dowered and nurtured you,
Till past all loveliness
That the East ever knew,
Regal you grew.
One June in Maenad-mirth
The great luxurious Mother
Gave you strange, mystic birth, --
Such as she gave no other --
You child of earth.
No unguent was too precious
For the high gods to give;
No passion too delicious
Through which you might not live,
To joy and grieve.
Long wanton centuries since,
In days of Rome and Tyre,
Thou mated once a prince
Of a great Persian sire
For Love's desire.
O thou wast more than fair!
Thou Rose of Paradise --
In lips, and cheeks, and hair, --
All beauty wonder-wise
'Neath those hot skies.





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