UNSPOKEN
The rose was as red as your lips were red,
The rose that I plucked for you;
In the red, red glow of its velvet heart
There shone just a drop of dew;
And the things you thought and the things I thought
Are a secret between us two!
I know that you took and you wore it long,
I saw it lie on your breast;
I know I envied the petals curled
That the look from your eyes caressed;
But your lips—they have never whispered yet
The thing that your eyes expressed.
But the rose that died on your breast that day
Is lying before me now;
The drop of dew that its red heart held
Is fled; and I wonder how
The crumpled petals had seemed so fair,
Now dead as an unbreathed vow!
And so the things your lips said not,
And the things I never said,
Are like the rose with its dust-dry leaves,
As dead as its heart is dead;
But my heart leaps up as I catch your eye,
And your cheeks as the rose are red!