I wish the bud would never blow,
'Tis prettier and purer so;
It blushes through its bower of green,
And peeps above the messy screen
So timidly, I cannot bear
To have it open to the air.
I kiss'd it o'er and o'er again,
As if my kisses were a chain,
To close the quivering leaflets fast,
And make for once—a rose-bud last!
But kisses are but feeble links
For changeful things, like flowers, methinks;
The wayward rose-leaves, one by one,
Uncurl'd and look'd up to the sun,
With their sweet flushes fainter growing,
I could not keep my bud from blowing!
Ah! there upon my hand it lay,
And faded, faded fast away;
You might have thought you heard it sighing,
It look'd so mournfully in dying.
I wish it were a rose-bud now,
I wish 'twere only hiding yet,
With timid grace its blushing brow,
Behind the green that shelter'd it.
I had not written were it so,
Why would the silly rose-bud blow?