There Was A Rose

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!