Poems (Osgood)/Why will a Rose-Bud Blow
WHY WILL A ROSE-BUD BLOW?
I wish the bud would never blow, 'Tis prettier and purer so; It blushes through its bower of green, And peeps above the messy screen So timidly, I cannot bear To have it open to the air. I kiss'd it o'er and o'er again, As if my kisses were a chain, To close the quivering leaflets fast, And make for once—a rose-bud last! But kisses are but feeble links For changeful things, like flowers, methinks; The wayward rose-leaves, one by one, Uncurl'd and look'd up to the sun, With their sweet flushes fainter growing, I could not keep my bud from blowing! Ah! there upon my hand it lay, And faded, faded fast away; You might have thought you heard it sighing, It look'd so mournfully in dying. I wish it were a rose-bud now, I wish 'twere only hiding yet, With timid grace its blushing brow, Behind the green that shelter'd it. I had not written were it so, Why would the silly rose-bud blow?