Original - Duke Divinity School

Mr Broome 141
The Rose-bud: To a Young Lady 142
Queen of Fragrance, lovely Rose,
The Beauties of thy Leaves disclose!
The Winter’s past, the Tempests fly,
Soft Gales breathe gently thro’ the Sky;
The Lark sweet warbling on the Wing
Salutes the gay Return of Spring:
The silver Dews, the vernal Show’rs,
Call forth a bloomy Waste of Flow’rs;
The joyous Fields, the shady Woods,
Are cloath’d with Green, or swell with Buds;
Then haste thy Beauties to disclose,
Queen of Fragrance, lovely Rose!
Thou, beauteous Flower, a welcome Guest,
Shalt flourish on the Fair-one’s Breast,
Shalt grace her Hand, or deck her Hair,
The Flow’r most sweet, the Nymph most fair;
Breathe soft, ye Winds! be calm, ye Skies!
Arise ye flow’ry Race, arise!
And haste thy Beauties to disclose,
Queen of Fragrance, lovely Rose!
But thou, fair Nymph, thyself survey
In this sweet Offspring of a Day;
Swift as Flower your charms will fly,
At Morn they bloom, at Ev’ning die: 143
Now Helen lives alone in Fame,
And Cleopatra’s but a Name;
Time must indent that heav’nly Brow,
And thou must be, what Helen’s now.
141 William Broome (1689–1745), Poems on Several Occasions (London: Bernard Lintot, 1727).
142Broome, “The Rose-bud: To a Young Lady,” Poems, 82–84. Wesley published in Arminian Magazine 1
(1778): 96.
143Wesley has reduced six lines to two. The original read:
That Miracle of Face must fail, / Thy Charms are sweet, but Charms are frail:
Swift as the short-liv’d Flow’r they fly, / At Morn they bloom, at Evening die:
Tho’ Sickness yet a while forbears, / Yet Time destroys, what Sickness spares;
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