Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE ROSE IN WINTER, by RICHARD THOMAS LE GALLIENNE Poet's Biography First Line: When last I saw this opening rose Last Line: Who could have dreamed so strange a thing? Subject(s): Flowers; Roses; Winter | ||||||||
WHEN last I saw this opening rose That holds the summer in its hand, And with its beauty overflows And sweetens half a shire of land, It was a black and cindered thing, Drearily rocking in the cold, The relic of a vanished spring, A rose abominably old. Amid the stainless snows it grinned, A foul and withered shape, that cast Ribbed shadows, and the gleaming wind Went rattling through it as it passed; It filled the heart with a strange dread, Hag-like, it made a whimpering sound, And gibbered like the wandering dead In some unhallowed burial-ground. Whoso on that December day Had seen it so deject and lorn, So lone a symbol of decay, Had dreamed of it this summer morn? Divined the power that should relume A flame so spent, and once more bring That blackened being back to bloom, -- Who could have dreamed so strange a thing? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...LOOKING EAST IN THE WINTER by JOHN HOLLANDER WINTER DISTANCES by FANNY HOWE WINTER FORECAST by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN AT WINTER'S EDGE by JUDY JORDAN CHAMBER MUSIC: 34 by JAMES JOYCE A BALLAD OF LONDON (TO H.W. MASSINGHAM) by RICHARD THOMAS LE GALLIENNE AFTER THE WAR by RICHARD THOMAS LE GALLIENNE WHAT OF THE DARKNESS?; TO THE HAPPY DEAD PEOPLE by RICHARD THOMAS LE GALLIENNE |
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