T h e W i l d R o s e

by John Jerome Rooney.

Illustration by Louis Rhead.

SAW a wild rose in the wilderness;

It was so sweet, so sweet

It seemed the one thing in the world

That God had made complete.

It grew beside a mossy road

In the deep northern woods,

And oh, its simple beauty lit

Those savage solitudes.

And, as I plucked it where it blew

All trembling in the wind,

It seemed a meet gift unto her—

The flower of womankind!

“The flower of womankind!”