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7
ROSES IN RAIN.
Wind-battered, storm-shattered the hour of their birth.
Their bright petals blown o’er the face of the earth,
All beaten and broken, forlorn and despised,
In bitterness nursed, and in sorrow baptised,
All shaken and shivering—their hope is in vain—
Poor pitiful roses that bloomed in the rain.
II.
O gentle Rose-Mother, what sighing and sorrow
Your heart had been spared, if, delayed till to-morrow,
Your children came forth on a sweet sunny morning,
Their radiance and beauty the wide world adorning;
And not as to-day, in the wild tempest tossing,
