Paul Hamilton Hayne's `The Red and the White Rose' (`Poems', pp. 231-232) is an interesting dialogue, which the author concludes by making the former an "earthly queen" and the latter a "heaven-bound votaress".
Mrs. Browning's `A Lay of the Early Rose' shows that we are not to strive "for the dole of praise."
To ——, with a Rose
I asked my heart to say [1]
Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay
Upon my Lady's natal day.
Then said my heart to me:
`Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee
What fits thy Love most lovingly.'
This gift that learning shows;
For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes,
I send a rose unto a Rose.
____ Philadelphia, 1876.
Notes: To ——, with a Rose
This poem was sent to Mrs. Gibson Peacock, of Philadelphia, who was one of Mr. Lanier's kindest and most appreciative friends. The poet's letters to Mr. and Mrs. Peacock have recently been published in `The Atlantic' (see `Thayer' in `Bibliography').
Of the numerous rose-compliments in English I can here specify but a few.
One of the prettiest is that by Henry Constable (`Saintsbury', p. 113):