To ——, with a Rose

I asked my heart to say
Some word whose worth my love's devoir might pay
      Upon my Lady's natal day.

      Then said my heart to me:
`Learn from the rhyme that now shall come to thee
      What fits thy Love most lovingly.'

      This gift that learning shows;
For, as a rhyme unto its rhyme-twin goes,
      I send a rose unto a Rose.

____ Philadelphia, 1876.