How Roses Came Red.

Roses at first were white,
Till they could not agree,
Whether my Sappho's breast
Or they more white should be.

But, being vanquish'd quite,
A blush their cheeks bespread;
Since which, believe the rest,
The roses first came red.

As lately I a garland bound,
'Mongst roses I there Cupid found;
I took him, put him in my cup,
And drunk with wine, I drank him up.
Hence then it is that my poor breast
Could never since find any rest.

[1]


While we invoke the wreathed spring,
Resplendent rose! to thee we'll sing;
Resplendent rose, the flower of flowers,
Whose breath perfumes the Olympian bowers;
Whose virgin blush, of chastened dye,
Enchants so much our mortal eye.
When pleasure's spring-tide season glows.
The Graces love to wreathe the rose;
And Venus, in its fresh-blown leaves,
An emblem of herself perceives.
Oft hath the poet's magic tongue
The rose's fair luxuriance sung;
And long the Muses, heavenly maids,
Have reared it in their tuneful shades.
When, at the early glance of morn,
It sleeps upon the glittering thorn,
'Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence
To cull the timid floweret thence,
And wipe with tender hand away
The tear that on its blushe...

White though ye be, yet, lilies, know,
From the first ye were not so;
But I'll tell ye
What befell ye:
Cupid and his mother lay
In a cloud, while both did play,
He with his pretty finger press'd
The ruby niplet of her breast;
Out of which the cream of light,
Like to a dew,
Fell down on you
And made ye white.

Under a lawn, than skies more clear,
Some ruffled Roses nestling were,
And snugging there, they seem'd to lie
As in a flowery nunnery;
They blush'd, and look'd more fresh than flowers
Quickened of late by pearly showers;
And all, because they were possest
But of the heat of Julia's breast,
Which, as a warm and moisten'd spring,
Gave them their ever-flourishing.

Air - "Hughie Graham."



I.

    O were my love yon lilac fair,
        Wi' purple blossoms to the spring;
    And I, a bird to shelter there,
        When wearied on my little wing!
    How I wad mourn, when it was torn
        By autumn wild, and winter rude!
    But I wad sing on wanton wing,
        When youthfu' May its bloom renewed.

II.

    O gin my love were yon red rose,
        That grows upon the castle wa';
    And I mysel' a drap o' dew,
        Into her bonnie breast to fa'!
    Oh, there beyond expression blest,
        I'd feast on beauty a' the night;
    Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
        Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light.