WHEN she rises in the morning I linger to watch her; She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window And the sunbeams catch her Glistening white on the shoulders, While down her sides the mellow Golden shadow glows as She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts Sway like full-blown yellow Gloire de Dijon roses. She drips herself with water, and her shoulders Glisten as silver, they crumple up Like wet and falling roses, and I listen For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals. In the window full of sunlight Concentrates her golden shadow Fold on fold, until it glows as Mellow as the glory roses. ICKING 

 ROSES ON THE BREAKFAST TABLE JUST a few of the roses we gathered from the Isar Are fallen, and their mauve-red petals on the cloth Float like boats on a river, while other Roses are ready to fall, reluctant and loth. She laughs at me across the table, saying I am beautiful. I look at the rumpled young roses And suddenly realise, in them as in me, How lovely the present is that this day discloses. 

      I AM LIKE A ROSE I AM myself at last; now I achieve My very self. I, with the wonder mellow, Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear And single me, perfected from my fellow. Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving Its limpid sap to culmination, has brought Itself more sheer and naked out of the green In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought. 

  

  

 ROSE OF ALL THE WORLD 

      I AM here myself; as though this heave of effort At starting other life, fulfilled my own:      Rose-leaves that whirl in colour round a core Of seed-specks kindled lately and softly blown By all the blood of the rose-bush into being—      Strange, that the urgent will in me, to set My mouth on hers in kisses, and so softly To bring together two strange sparks, beget Another life from our lives, so should send The innermost fire of my own dim soul out-         spinning And whirling in blossom of flame and being upon me! That my completion of manhood should be the beginning Another life from mine! For so it looks. The seed is purpose, blossom accident. The seed is all in all, the blossom lent To crown the triumph of this new descent. Is that it, woman? Does it strike you so? The 

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