A Rose, the poet's favourite flower, No fairer flowers could FANCY twine And ELLIOT's sweetest blush was there. When she, the pride of courts, retires, And leaves for shades, a nation's love, With awe the village maid admires, How WALDEGRAVE looks, how WALDE GRAVE moves. So marvelled much in ENON'S shade D Yet one, that oft adorned the place "Mistaken youth," with sighs she said, "From nature and from me to stray! "The bard, by splendid forms betrayed, "No more shall frame the purer lay. "Luxuriant, like the flaunting Rose, "And gay the brilliant strains may be, "But far, in beauty, far from those, "That flowed to nature and to me." The poet felt with fond surprise, The truths the sylvan critic told; And "though this courtly Rose," he cries, "Is gay, is beauteous to behold; 1 Yet, lovely flower, I find in thee "Wild sweetness which no words express, "And charms in thy simplicity, "That dwell not in the pride of dress." |