What knows a bride of the bliss of a wife?

Are all things the dearer for growing old?

As flowers are sweeter deep in a wood;

Will the warmth of May in July seem cold?

Was earth less perfect when God call'd it 'good'?

Even roses when young are only green,

And the exquisite perfume faint and small,

If roses are lovely when just half seen,

When blown they are sweetest and best of all.

[pg 52]

Time passes on, and they open too much;

Still the rich fragrance about them is shed;

Delicate petals fall off with a touch;

Happy and mourn'd for, the roses are dead!

And when we die (if death ever can be,

Life leaping in me, it sounds like a jest),

May it be thus with my Harry and me—

Love's latest perfume its sweetest and best.

He, whom I speak to, smiles into my face,

Crying, with kisses, that life would restore,

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