To the Red Rose Found Dead in My Diary

Drying and dying, the red rose I loved;
uncared, waiting in deadening solitude
a Wordsworth to serve it right,
not the unjust I.

I am alive, in debt of a purer
smile: the bright morning you
gave me, and your life too.

A slave to acquisitions,
I plucked you bloodless,
preserving you for posterity
in my ageing diary.