Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/There was a Rose
THERE WAS A ROSE.
"There was a rose," she said, "Like other roses, perhaps, to you.Nine years ago it was faint and red, Away in the cold dark dew, On the dwarf bush where it grew.
"Never any rose before Was like that rose, very well I know;Never another rose any more Will blow as that rose did blow, When the wet wind shook it so.
"What do I want—Ah, what? Why, I want that rose, that wee one rose,Only that rose. And that rose is not Anywhere just now? . . . God knows Where all the old sweetness goes.
"I want that rose so much; I would take the world back there to the nightWhere I saw it blush in the grass, to touch It once in that Autumn light, And only once, if I might.
"But a million marching men From the North and the South would arise,And the dead—would have to die again? And the women's widowed cries Would trouble anew the skies?
"No matter. I would not care; Were it not better that this should be?The sorrow of many the many bear,— Mine is too heavy for me. And I want that rose, you see!"
Washington, D. C., 1870,