The nymph must lose her female friend
If more admired than she, –
But where will fierce contention end
If flowers can disagree?
Within the garden’s peaceful scene
Appeared two lovely foes,
Aspiring to the rank of queen,
The Lily and the Rose.
The Rose soon reddened into rage,
And swelling with disdain,
Appealed to many a poet’s page
To prove her right to reign.
The Lily’s height bespoke command,
A fair imperial flower,
She seemed designed for Flora’s hand,
The sceptre of her power.
This civil bickering and debate
The goddess chanced to hear,
And flew to save, ere yet too late,
The pride of the parterre.
Yours is, she said, the nobler hue,
And yours the statelier mien,
And till a third surpasses you,
Let each be deemed a queen.
Thus soothed and reconciled, each seeks
The fairest British fair,
The seat of empire is her cheeks,
They reign united there.
—————
The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
Poetry Monster — the ultimate repository of world poetry.
Poetry Monster — the multilingual library of poetic works. Here you’ll find original poems, poetry translations, ancient verses, ballads and even folk tales.
Poetry Monster (or even The Poetry Monster) — is also an international multilingual community of poets and poetry connoisseurs. Join us:
Some external links: The Bat’s Poetry Cave. — Fledermaus’s poetry site. Talking Writing Monster. — the irreverent and irrelevant chatter on subjects both serious and not quite. A free for all board. You can scribble anything on it without registration (but it doesn’t let spammers in). You can even post your poems. Qwant.com. — a search engine from France. It’s an alternative because there are a few alternatives, like Bing, Duckduckgo, and Ecosia. And there is Yandex, the ultimate language-oriented search engine for the Russophone world. Commercial Links: Russian Commerce – the foreign trade assistance agency Other links: Poems and poetry in Russian (if you are reading this in English, as you obviously are, then you’d have to switch the language, the language switch is on the menu. More on languages)
