| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | “Passe Rosa” | | By Louise Driscoll |
| | | | Cecelia del Balzo, wife of Amadeus IV, Duke of Savoy, was so called in the twelfth century throughout all Europe. |
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MORE beautiful than roses! Eight centuries have rolled | |
| Their hundred cycles o’er you, | |
| And still we may adore you, | |
| Reading the printed pages where your history is told. | |
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| More beautiful than roses! O lady, dear and dead, | 5 |
| The daughters of a strange new race | |
| Ponder on your amazing grace, | |
| And picture your white hands and sunny head. | |
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| More beautiful than roses! You have been dead so long! | |
| Where is the sweet, white breast of you? | 10 |
| And where the golden crest of you? | |
| And where the men who bled for you, fighting through right and wrong? | |
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| More beautiful than roses! Upon your grave today | |
| The violets that were your eyes | |
| Are smiling to Aosta’s skies, | 15 |
| Eight hundred years ago you went that way. | |
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| More beautiful than roses! Sometimes your eyes were filled | |
| With bitter tears you might not shed, | |
| And now your griefs and you are dead. | |
| And yet, through Time, the crucible, your perfume is distilled. | 20 | | |
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