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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  446. The Rosebud

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

William Broome. ?–1745

446. The Rosebud

QUEEN of fragrance, lovely Rose, 
The beauties of thy leaves disclose! 
—But thou, fair Nymph, thyself survey 
In this sweet offspring of a day. 
That miracle of face must fail,         5
Thy charms are sweet, but charms are frail: 
Swift as the short-lived flower they fly, 
At morn they bloom, at evening die: 
Though Sickness yet a while forbears, 
Yet Time destroys what Sickness spares:  10
Now Helen lives alone in fame, 
And Cleopatra’s but a name: 
Time must indent that heavenly brow, 
And thou must be what they are now.