AN exquisite little maiden

With a head like a golden flower,

She soberly stood at the window

In the still, white twilight hour.

"Of what are you thinking, sweetheart?

She was such a little child,

She could not answer the question;

She only dimpled and smiled.

But I wondered, as she frolicked,

Her mystic revery o'er,

Was she a rose-shade less a child

Than she had been before?

Was she pausing, as a rose-bud

Seems pausing while it grows?

Had I caught the blooming minute

Of a little human rose?