This rose, the lips that kiss, and the young breast

they kindle, flush’d throughout its waking snows;

and this, that tremulous on the morning blows,

heart’s youth some golden dew of dream hath blest;

auroras, grace and sooth! no tragic west

shed splendid the red anger of your close:

how soon within this wandering barrow grows

the canker’d heap of petals once caress’d!

Old odours of the rose are sickening; night,

hasten above the corpse of old delight,

if in decay the heart cherish some heat,

to breed new spice within the charnel-mould,

that eyes unseal’d with living dew may greet

the morning of the deathless rose of gold.