| |
| POOR Rose! I lift you from the street— | |
| Far better I should own you, | |
| Than you should lie for random feet, | |
| Where careless hands have thrown you! | |
| |
| Poor pinky petals, crushed and torn! | 5 |
| Did heartless Mayfair use you, | |
| Then cast you forth to lie forlorn, | |
| For chariot wheels to bruise you? | |
| |
| I saw you last in Edith’s hair. | |
| Rose, you would scarce discover | 10 |
| That I she passed upon the stair | |
| Was Edith’s favored lover. | |
| |
| A month—“a little month”—ago— | |
| O theme for moral writer!— | |
| ’Twixt you and me, my Rose, you know, | 15 |
| She might have been politer; | |
| |
| But let that pass. She gave you then— | |
| Behind the oleander— | |
| To one, perhaps, of all the men, | |
| Who best could understand her,— | 20 |
| |
| Cyril that, duly flattered, took, | |
| As only Cyril’s able, | |
| With just the same Arcadian look | |
| He used, last night, for Mabel; | |
| |
| Then, having waltzed till every star | 25 |
| Had paled away in morning, | |
| Lit up his cynical cigar, | |
| And tossed you downward, scorning. | |
| |
| Kismet, my Rose! Revenge is sweet,— | |
| She made my heart-strings quiver; | 30 |
| And yet—You sha’n’t lie in the street, | |
| I’ll drop you in the River. | |
| |
