There Was a Rose

There was a rose in Eden once: it grows

On Earth now, sweeter for its rare perfume:

And Paradise is poorer by one bloom,

And Earth is richer. In this blossom glows

More loveliness than old seraglios

Or courts of kings did ever yet illume:

More purity, than ever yet had room

In soul of nun or saint.— O human rose,—

Who art initial and sweet period of

My heart's divinest sentence, where I read

Love, first and last, and in the pauses love;

Who art the dear ideal of each deed

My life aspires by to some high goal,—

Set in the haunted garden of my soul!