Sick-room Fancies
I My Wall-Paper
The paper roses, blue and red,
That climbing go about my bed,
All up and down my chamber wall,
A-quarrelling one day did fall;
And as with half-shut eyes I lay,
’Twas thus I heard the roses say:
“You vulgar creature!” cried the Red,
“I wonder you dare raise your head,
Much less go flaunting here and there
With such a proud and perky air.
I am a rose indeed; but you!
Who ever heard of roses blue?
Your sense of truth, Ma’am, must be small,
To call yourself a rose at all.”
The Blue Rose proudly raised her head;
“Your humble servant, Ma’am!” she said.
“My family, I own, is far
From being such as you, Ma’am, are.
We blossomed lately in the sky,
A fairy plucked us, floating by,
And flung us down to earth, that we
Might show what roses ought to be.
So, while we still adorn the earth,
Our hue attests our skyey birth.”
Just then my Rose came through the room;
And in her hand, in wondrous bloom,
A lovely snow-white bud she bore,
With diamond dew-drops sprinkled o’er.
She laid it in my hand, and “See,”
She said, “how fair a rose may be!”
The paper roses, Blues and Reds,
For shame hung down their silly heads.
I watched them, laughing, as I lay,
But not another word said they.