The Rose of Jericho

Waste is the sacred shore;
The Moab mountains frown
Above it bleak and brown;
No more, alas, no more,
Towers any lordly town
Anear the sacred shore!

The riotous red bloom
What hands now pluck and twine
From off the coiling vine?
Through the green-shadowed gloom
Untouched I see it shine,
The crimson-lippèd bloom.

I pluck you, glowing flower,
I set you in my rhyme;
Breathe of your balmy clime;
Grant me one orient hour
In wan, chill winter-time;
Be my perennial flower!