The Poetry Corner

There Was a Rose

By Madison Julius Cawein

There was a rose in Eden once: it grows On Earth now, sweeter for its rare perfume: And Paradise is poorer by one bloom, And Earth is richer. In this blossom glows More loveliness than old seraglios Or courts of kings did ever yet illume: More purity, than ever yet had room In soul of nun or saint. O human rose, Who art initial and sweet period of My heart's divinest sentence, where I read Love, first and last, and in the pauses love; Who art the dear ideal of each deed My life aspires by to some high goal, Set in the haunted garden of my soul!