Carol and Cadence :: :: University of Virginia Library

Roses, roses, nothing everywhere but roses,
Pink and crimson, damask, red and white and yellow
Running riot in the gladsome garden-closes,
Each one brighter, sweeter, fresher than its fellow!
And the jessamine, the Persians' “Hand of Moses,”
Each star thrusting up to heaven above the next,
With its silver comment-scripture how it gloses
On the flower-queen's royal text!

I could never bear the smell of roses, never
Since you died;
There's a sharpness in their scent that seems to sever
All the chords of life within my sorry side;
And the jessamine, o'er all you loved and cherished,
Hath a bitter in its breath,
As of herbs upon the pall of pleasance perished
Or of drugs upon the livery laid of death.

You in June were born, in middle flower-and sun-time,
When the revel of the roses is most high,
I at August-ending, hard on Summer-done time,
When the world is growing grave for Autumn nigh.

You were born to bask in sun and summer weather,
I the shadow-ways of lonely thought to fare:
There was nothing, dear, to link our lives together,
And they parted, ere the roses faded were.

You a butterfly were born, a flowerbed rover,
I a dreamer in the shadow of the sun;
Yet you died before the summer days were over,
And I live on yet, though Winter is begun.