_by John Jerome Rooney._
_Illustration by Louis Rhead._
I saw a wild rose in the wilderness;
It was so sweet, so sweet
It seemed the one thing in the world
That God had made complete.
It grew beside a mossy road
In the deep northern woods,
And oh, its simple beauty lit
Those savage solitudes.
And, as I plucked it where it blew
All trembling in the wind,
It seemed a meet gift unto her—
The flower of womankind!
[Illustration: “_The flower of womankind!_”]