The Last Of The Roses

A ROYAL rose! A rose how darkly red!
A proud, voluptuous, full blown flower, that sways
Her sceptre o'er the wind-swept garden-ways,
With mantling cheek and bold, imperious head!
Alone she lifts above yon desolate bed
A beauty past all terms of raptured praise,
The statelier that she rules in autumn days,
When every rival flower is dimmed or dead!
A haughty Cleopatra! there she smiles,
Unwitting that her sovereign love is lost--
Her Antony! a gorgeous sunflower bloom!
Ah! vain henceforth her beauty and sweet wiles!
Queen! art then blind? Thy lord hath met his doom;
His Actium came with winter's vanguard--Frost!