IF LIKE A ROSE.

If life were like a rose designed, That proves its purpose to be fair And with the grace its bud divined Distils June’s sweetness on the air; Then would the stubborn sheaths that hold The flower of the heart’s ideal Beneath the stress of time unfold And what we dream become the real— If life had but the rose’s art And beauty burgeoned from the heart! Then like the rose that o’er the grass Spills leaf by leaf its lovely freight And tho’ its purple fortunes pass Is calm in an accomplished fate, Might we with less reluctant will Yield up the harvest of our hours, Seeing the inner grace fulfil Its promise in old age’s powers— If life had but the rose’s art And beauty burgeoned from the heart! —Edward A. Uffington Valentine.