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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI by DANTE ALIGHIERI ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL, CONCORD, JULY 4, 1857 by RALPH WALDO EMERSON AN INVITATION TO A DRINKFEST by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS MINSTREL OF THE SUN by FREDERICK HENRY HERBERT ADLER PSALM 147 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM OF FINTRY, REQUESTING A FAVOR by ROBERT BURNS MASQUE AT THE MARRIAGE OF THE EARL OF SOMERSET: CHORUS (3) by THOMAS CAMPION |