The Messenger Rose
If you have seen a richer glow,Pray, tell me where your roses blow!Look! coral-leaved! and—mark these spotsRed staining red in crimson clots,Like a sweet lip bitten throughIn a pique. There, where that hueIs spilt in drops, some fairy thingHath gashed the azure of its wing,Or thence, perhaps, this very morn,Plucked the splinters of a thorn.
Rose! I make thy bliss my care!In my lady’s dusky hairThou shalt burn this coming night,With even a richer crimson light.To requite me thou shalt tell—What I might not say as well—How I love her; how, in brief,On a certain crimson leafIn my bosom, is a debtWrit in deeper crimson yet.If she wonder what it be—But she’ll guess it, I foresee—Tell her that I date it, pray,From the first sweet night in May.