Excerpt from “Mrs. Hucksbee sits out”
by Rudyard Kipling

Fair Eve knelt close to the garden gate,
In the hush of an Eastern Spring;
She saw the flash of the Angel’s sword,
The gleam of the Angel’s wing.

And because she was so beautiful,
And because she could not see
How fair were the pure white cyclamens
Crushed, dying at her knee;

He plucked a rose from the Eden tree,
Where the four great rivers met,
And sheltered her bosom’s thorny pain
‘Neath its petals dewy wet.

And though for many a cycle past
That rose in the dust hath lain,
With her who bore it upon her breast,
When she passed from grief and pain.

There was never a daughter of Eve, but once
Ere the tale of her years be done,
Shall know the scent of the Eden rose,
But once beneath the sun!

Though the years may bring her joy or pain,
Fame, sorrow, or sacrifice,
The hour that brought her the scent of the rose,
She lived it in Paradise.