To Rosa
To Rosa
Original Text
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, III, ed. Roy P. Basler, Marion Dolores Pratt, and Lloyd A. Dunlap (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953): 203. E 457 .91 Robarts Library
2 You are hopeful, I am not --
3Enjoy life, ere it grow colder --
4 Pluck the roses ere they rot.
5Teach your beau to heed the lay --
6 That sunshine soon is lost in shade --
7That now's as good as any day --
8 To take thee, Rosa, ere she fade.
Notes
1] "Lincoln wrote the verses in the autograph album of Rosa Haggard, daughter of the proprieter of the hotel at Winchester, Illinois, where he stayed when speaking at that place on the same date" (Works, III, 203). Back to Line
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2003
Rhyme
Form