A wild rose grew by the ocean's edge, At the fringe of a grove of pine. She saw with joy from her sheltered ledge The vast sea glimmer and shine. She longed to float from her rocky bed To an isle in a southern sea For there she would glow a deeper red, More sweet would her fragrance be. She watched the white gulls swoop and poise, The gray sails fade from sight. "Alas!" she said, "must I lose their joys, The wanderer's delight?" But when eager winds sang loudly "Come," She trembled and paled with fear. Gladly she clung to her rocky home With the sheltering balsam near. One day, as she bent to the rocks below, A sea weed glistening there Said "Rose, poor rose, you can never know Love's power—yet you are fair. "Myself I gave to the swiftest wave Thrilled with life's ecstasy. He woo'd me and snatched me from ocean cave To carry me over the sea "Where the waves are warm and the sun is bright; Far south, in some coral bay, He will rock me and sing me to sleep at night, And dance with me all through the day. "He has left me here till he finds the track That leads where the south winds dwell. When the tide rolls in, he'll come leaping back And then, little rose, farewell." At night, when the wild rose bowed her head, She longed for a lover, too. She would give herself gladly to him, she said, Whenever he came to woo. She bent at morning to praise her friend Who greatly had dared love's deed; But beyond the rocks where the flood tides end Lay only a withered weed. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PLEDGE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON TO JOHN BROWN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON A SONG OF ETERNITY IN TIME by SIDNEY LANIER SWEET CLOVER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS PEOPLE'S SURROUNDINGS by MARIANNE MOORE |