I MAY not speak in words, dear, but let my words be flowers,
To tell their crimson secret in leaves of fragrant fire;
They plead for smiles and kisses as summer fields for showers,
And every purple veinlet thrills with exquisite desire.

O, let me see the glance, dear, the gleam of soft confession
You give my amorous roses for the tender hope they prove;
And press their heart-leaves back, love, to drink their deeper passion,
For their sweetest, wildest perfume is the whisper of my love!

My roses, tell her, pleading, all the fondness and the sighing,
All the longing of a heart that reaches thirsting for its bliss;
And tell her, tell her, roses, that my lips and eyes are dying
For the melting of her love-look and the rapture of her kiss.