Right from a jar of blooms, I plucked a rose,
The most unfaded beauty of them all,
Her petals smooth as crimson silken clothes,
Still fully fresh, not ready yet to fall.
I snatched the petals off before their time,
And said, "It all would disappear one day,
So while your loveliness is in its prime,
I'll capture it and let the image stay."

Her petals falling whispered a reply,
"Why to another does my beauty owe?
Is it not mine?" She finished with a sigh,
"What ill you do to those whose virtues show!"

Her cov'rings gone, a bud is left behind,
Her fleeting, sweet perfume gone with the wind.