Classic Poem

The Rose spoke in the garden:
“Why am I sad?
The vast of sky above me
Is blue and glad;
The hushed deep of my heart
Hath the sun's gold;
The dew slumbers till noon
In my petals' hold.
Beauty I have, and wisdom,
And love I know,
Yet cannot release my spirit
Of its strange woe.”

Then a Wind, older than Time,
Wiser than Sleep,
Answered: “The whole world's sorrow
Is yours to keep.
Its dark descends upon you
At day's high noon;
Its pallor is whitening about you
From every moon;
The cries of a thousand lovers,
A thousand slain,
The tears of all the forgotten
Who kissed in vain,
And the journeying years that have vanished
Have left on you
The witness, each, of its pain,
Ancient yet new.
So many lives you have lived;
So many a star
Hath veered in the Signs to make you
The wonder you are!
And this is the price of your beauty:
Your wild soul is thronged
With the phantoms of joy unfulfilled
That beauty hath wronged;
With the pangs of all secret betrayals,
The ghosts of desire,
The bite of old flame, and the chill
Of the ashes of fire.”