Is that a rose?

Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen
and waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

                        ~  Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Thomas Gray.

In the front yard, a plain hibiscus blooms;

the rose’s glamour is on show at the back.

The gardener does not enter my rooms

he knocks, and I open the door a crack.

The guests wipe their feet on the front door mat

but the hibiscus twists shut by then;

it’s a simple short-lived, no-perfume format

rather like a pebble in the garden;

a pebble splashes only when it drops

a few ripples and the surface is blanked;

the rose meanwhile preens its bushy red mop

the closed hibiscus lies wholly outranked.

But just the gardener and I see the shows

if no-one sees it bloom, is it still a rose?