DEEM YOU THE ROSES....

By Robert Nichols

Deem you the roses taste no pleasure

Unfolding hour by hour

Toward, through starlit peace and sunny leisure,

Their sharpest moment, when they dower

This great green world, this rustling place,

Active in music, light, and grace,

With their hid hearts, their golden treasure,

Odours so deep they overpower?

See how, hazed in the sunny weather,

The silken roses swim,

Nodding heads frail as a high cloud's feather,

Expressing Joy in Beauty's Hymn.

And, hark! from many a hidden face

Echoes I hear through silver space:

The Morning Stars that sing together,

And the delighting Seraphim!