WHAT is my little sweetheart like, d' you say? A simple question, yet a hard, to answer; But I will tell you in my stammering way The best I can, sir. When I was young -- that's neither here nor there -- I read, and reading made my eyelids glisten; But I'll repeat the story, if you care To stay and listen. A wild rose, born within a modest glen, And sheltered by the leaves of thorny bushes, Drooped, being commended to the eyes of men, And died of blushes. Now, if there were -- and one may well suppose There never was a flower of such rare splendor, Much less a rudely nurtured wilding rose, Withal so tender -- But say there were; what is a rose the less, When all from east to west the May is blazing, That any tuneful bard her face should miss, And give her praising? Yet say there did, and that her heart did break, As tells the romance of my early reading, Then I that fair, fond flower for emblem take -- Sir, are you heeding? -- Aye, say there were, and that she spent her days In ignorance of her proud poetic glory; Only her soft death making to the praise Of her brief story: Even such a wild, bright flower, and so apart In her low modest house, my little maid is -- Sweet-hearted, shy, and strange to all the art Of your fine ladies. So tender, that to death she needs must grieve, Stabbed by the glances of bold eyes, is certain; Take you the emblem, then, and give me leave To drop the curtain. |