University of Virginia Library

ROSES.

Once, in evening's mellow twilight,
When the sun was sinking low,
Lighting up the western heavens,
In a mighty tableaux,
Wandered I among the roses
Where the brooklet babbled down,
O'er the mosses and the pebbles,
Through the meadows green and brown.
All of roses was I thinking,
All of roses rich and rare.
Wending through them, I beheld one
Stately grand and strangly fair.
Of the roses, all the roses,
This was strangely then my choice—
Thou art mine of fairest flowers,
Murmured I in rapture's voice.
Mine of all that's grace and beauty,
Mine to press unto my heart,
Mine forever, ay, forever,
Mine for never more to part,
And I clapsed the august rosebud;
But a thorn struck in my hand,
And the rose fell in the brooklet
And went singing through the land.
With the babble of the brooklet;
With the singing of the birds,
So light-hearted, ah so gaily,
That I shuddered at its words,
And went wending through the roses
Blankly staring at the ground,
Hearing not the voice of nature,
Which was singing all around.
Afterwards I saw the rosebud,
Which in colors rare did blend,
With its torn and faded petals,
In the bosom of a friend.
Oft' I wander through in the bower,
Of the roses by the stream,
Mid their fragrance and their pleasure,
Do I friendly muse and dream.
There are roses other roses,
Just as grand and just as fair,
Dew-damped roses in the twilight,
Sparkling jewels of nature rare.