Rose Garden

a poem to a jilted lover
by oosh@gmx.net


In my bosom, vale of woe
Let your heartbreak take its flow,
Shelter from the world unkind;
Deep compassion shall you find.

While you knew the briefest joy,
Rose did use you as a toy.
She nor love nor mercy knows:
Heartless, callous, lovely Rose!

Velvet armour swathes her thorn:
She to fleshly combat born;
Lethal, fearsome, lovely Rose -
In what tortured soil she grows!

Though you think it Cupid's dart,
'Tis her roots that stab thy heart.
Drink she must your poison tears,
Drinking to allay her fears.

With those crimson petalled lips
From your toxic well she sips,
Drowning out Time's tocsin bell:
For it rings her beauty's knell.

Every friendship, every care
That for love our hearts do bear,
Every joy and every woe
Our heart's garden make to grow.

Every love we celebrate
Yields a plot in heart's estate;
Fee perpetual we grant
Love undying to implant.

Though in truth she rules thy heart,
Yet 'tis broken: only part
Lies contemned at Rose's feet:
The greater part doth onward beat.

Hearts were made to break and bleed:
Full five thousand will they feed.
Rose's tiny garden gate
Close now, leave inviolate.

In that garden, you enshrine
Rose's loveliness divine;
Beauty from its earthly state
Holy love doth elevate.

If the birds unheard do sing,
In whose ear does music ring?
Unseen by adoring eye,
Where would Rose's beauty lie?

From her everlasting shrine
Turn those weeping eyes of thine
To the host of blooms unfurled
In the garden of the world.

Every poem, every song
Makes the wounded heart grow strong.
Every noble thought you cherish
Doth your land the more embellish.

Every herb and every flower
Has its own especial power
To reflect in its own way
Undivided light of day.

Every plot of land you grant
That a seed may there implant,
Blossoms into vistas new:
Pastures to your heart accrue.

Days of sun and years of rain
Feed and water garden's gain;
Plenitude on every hand
Burgeons in your culture-land.

Visitors you soon receive:
Some will stay and some will leave;
Some will pluck at tender shoot,
Others in your soil will root.

Then will wander through your gates
One your beauty captivates.
Grant to her a fertile plot:
Never touch her! Pluck her not!

Do not pick the lovely flowers!
How we like to think they're ours!
Touch no stem: for sure they'll prick.
'Tis not our lot, but theirs to pick.

She who plants with you the vine
Hers is fellowship condign;
She who tills the earth with you,
Hers is fellow worship true.

Love and grief the heart expand,
Eye adjusts to vistas grand:
Garden vast in childhood days
Shrinks beneath the adult's gaze.

As you roam your vast domain
You'll come upon that plot again:
Rose's garden, now her shrine,
Tiny, perfect, crystalline;

Once rejection entry banned
Now too small to fit your hand
Is the gateway, shrunken thin:
Rose's beauty sleeps within.

Faded now, her petals wan
Where has Rose's beauty gone?
Gone where love alone may see:
In thy shrine of memory.

Pity her who love rejected,
Now in loneliness dejected,
She no sweet compassion knows -
Poor, neglected, loveless Rose!

Pray that love her heart will know,
Pray that wisdom there will grow,
Pray she sees the light divine -
Turn then from that little shrine.

Turn to her who true love knows,
She who ever closer grows,
She who breathes your every breath,
She who'll mourn you at your death.
