There were only two extremely trivial edits to the original of this poem ("breeze" for "wind" and "mix of" for "mixed") so I've not included the original.

No rhyme, no set rhythm, imagery not fully developed. Without knowing the exact date, I cannot tell if originates from the time when I was in love with my first girlfriend, or after that relationship broke down. During that relationship I was cocky - pretty much all was well, and so I didn't get terribly self critical and that would have flown through to the poem.For this reason I have left it basically unedited. Subject matter is not something I would have written directly to Jane, but as an aspiring writer I could have written it in the hope she would like the poems I wrote.

On the other hand, the progression and wistful"ness and despair of the poem as it progresses is something I could well have written shortly after our break-up, in my own misery. My gut feeling is that I would not have done this - as a broken person, I didn't put much energy into anything - no attention to Uni classes and I was saved only by the fact that I had two terms worth of exams done and study for half of the last term in my brain before it went to pieces. In spite of the "sad" ending, I think the first surmise is the most likely.

Everything else I wrote at the time ended up on the scrap heap -  I kept it for many years, but by the time I had written a significant amount again, I recognised that it was pretty poor quality. This one I kept as the best of the time, and I think it was worth keeping - but I would not put it up as anything other than "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". 

The rose in question was a white rose bush that Mum had in the garden, and I saw it every morning when it was in bloom going off to Uni and other places. The progression of states was easy to see. I may think about a rewrite, but it will be a different poem. Possibly about our Pretty Jessica rose.