Posted by Poetry Alley

Plant, above my lifeless heart
Crimson roses, red as blood.
As if the love, pent there so long
Were pouring forth its flood.

Then, through them, my heart may tell,
Its Past of Love and Grief,
And I shall feel them grow from it,
And know a vague relief.

Through rotting shroud shall feel their roots,
And unto them myself shall grow,
And when I blossom at her feet,
She, on that day, shall know!

(Poem is in the public domain) 

Anne Reeve Aldrich (1866 – 1892) was an American poet and novelist. Her works include The Rose of Flame (1889) and Other and The Feet of Love (1890) and Songs about Life, Love, and Death (published posthumously in 1892). Aldrich was born in New York City. Her father died when she was eight; her mother moved to the country, where she educated Aldrich. By the time she was a teenager, Aldrich was proficient in composition and rhetoric, was able to translate French and Latin. She wrote poetry constantly from a young age.