There Was a Rose

There was a rose in Eden once: it grows
On Earth now, sweeter for its rare perfume:
And Paradise is poorer by one bloom,
And Earth is richer. In this blossom glows
More loveliness than old seraglios
Or courts of kings did ever yet illume:
More purity, than ever yet had room
In soul of nun or saint. O human rose,
Who art initial and sweet period of
My heart's divinest sentence, where I read
Love, first and last, and in the pauses love;
Who art the dear ideal of each deed
My life aspires by to some high goal,
Set in the haunted garden of my soul!