O spare my flower, my gentle flower,
The slender creature of a day!

O spare my flower, my gentle flower,
The slender creature of a day!
Let it bloom out its little hour,
            And pass away.
Too soon its fleeting charms must lie
Decayed, unnoticed, overthrown.
O hasten not its destiny, –
            Too like thy own.

The breeze will roam this way to-morrow,
And sigh to find his playmate gone:
The bee will come its sweets to borrow,
            And meet with none.
O spare! and let it still outspread
Its beauties to the passing eye,
And look up from its lowly bed
            Upon the sky.

O spare my flower!  Thou know'st not what
Thy undiscerning hand would tear:
A thousand charms thou notest not
            Lie treasured there.
Not Solomon, in all his state,
Was clad like nature's simplest child;
Nor could the world combined create
            One floweret wild.

Spare then this humble monument
Of an Almight's power and skill;
And let it at His shrine present
            Its homage still.
He made it who makes nought in vain:
He watches it who watches thee;
And he can best its date ordain
            Who bade it be.

O spare my flower-for it is frail;
A timid, weak, imploring thing –
And let it still upon the gale
            Its moral fling.
That moral thy reward shall be:
Catch the suggestion, and apply: –
"Go, live like me," it cries, "like me
            "Soon, soon to die."

~ Henry Francis Lyte

Peace Rose