In a Rose Garden

And vainly there foregathered,

Shall we regret the sun?
The rose of love, ungathered?
The bay, we have not won?

Ah, child! the world's dark marges
May lead to Nevermore,
The stately funeral barges

Sail for an unknown shore,
And love we vow to-morrow,
And pride we serve to-day:
What if they both should borrow
Sad hues of yesterday?

Our pride! Ah, should we miss it,

Or will it serve at last?
Our anger, if we kiss it,
Is like a sorrow past.
While roses deck the garden,
While yet the sun is high,
Doff sorry pride for pardon,
Or ever love go by.

639

Ernest Dowson (1867-1900]

IN A ROSE GARDEN

A HUNDRED years from now, dear heart,

We shall not care at all.

It will not matter then a whit,

The honey or the gall.

The summer days that we have known

Will all forgotten be and flown;

The garden will be overgrown

Where now the roses fall.

A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We shall not mind the pain;

The throbbing crimson tide of life

Will not have left a stain.

The song we sing together, dear,
The dream we dream together here,
Will mean no more than means a tear
Amid a summer rain.

A hundred years from now, dear heart,
The grief will all be o'er;

The sea of care will surge in vain
Upon a careless shore.

These glasses we turn down to-day
Here at the parting of the way—
We shall be wineless then as they,
And shall not mind it more.

A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We'll neither know nor care
What came of all life's bitterness,
Or followed love's despair.

Then fill the glasses up again,

And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain;
We'll build one castle more in Spain,
And dream one more dream there.
John Bennett [1865-

"GOD BLESS YOU, DEAR, TO-DAY"

If there be graveyards in the heart
From which no roses spring,

A place of wrecks and old gray tombs
From which no birds take wing,
Where linger buried hopes and dreams
Like ghosts among the graves,
Why, buried hopes are dismal things,
And lonely ghosts are knaves!

If there come dreary winter days,
When summer roses fall

And lie, forgot, in withered drifts
Along the garden wall;

Her Pathway

If all the wreaths a lover weaves
Turn thorns upon the brow,-
Then out upon the silly fool
Who makes not merry now!

For if we cannot keep the past,
Why care for what's to come?
The instant's prick is all that stings,
And then the place is numb.
If Life's a lie, and Love's a cheat,
As I have heard men say,

Then here's a health to fond deceit

God bless you, dear, to-day!

641

John Bennett (1865

HER PATHWAY

So sweet a path it is that I

And all the flowers love it:

The gracious goldenrod sways nigh,
The asters bend above it.

In ruby or in golden cup

Its name the lichen pledges,

And crimson-berried vines creep up,
Bejeweling its edges.

The bees and crickets sing its songs,

The shadows kiss it lightly,
While butterflies in golden throngs
Flit up and down it brightly.

And little pines with jealous frown
Try here and there to hide it,
Lest falling stars should hasten down
To woo it if they spied it.

And I, too, fain would keep its way
Safe hidden 'mid the grasses―

Sweet path, dear path, down which each day,

My little true love passes.

Cornelia Kane Rathbone [18

TO ARCADY

ACROSS the hills of Arcady
Into the Land of Song-
Ah, dear, if you will go with me
The way will not be long!

It will not lead through solitudes
Of wind-blown woods or sea;
Dear, no! the city's weariest moods
May scarce veil Arcady.

'Tis in no unfamiliar land

Lit by some distant star.
No! Arcady is where you stand,
And Song is where you are!

So walk but hand in hand with me-
No road can lead us wrong;
These are the hills of Arcady-
Here is the Land of Song!

Charles Buxton Going [1863

WILD WISHES

I WISH, because the sweetness of your passing
Makes all the earth a garden where you tread,
That I might be the meanest of your roses,
To pave your path with petals passion-red!

I wish, because the softness of your breathing
Stirs the white jasmine at your window frame,
That I might be the fragrance of a flower,

To stir the night breeze with your dearest name!

I wish, because the glory of your dreaming

Strews all the field of heaven with throbbing stars, That I might storm the portals of your slumber, And soar with you beyond night's golden bars!

"Because of You"

I wish to be the day you die, Beloved,

643

Though at its close my foolish heart must break! But most of all, I wish, my dearest darling,

To be the Blessed Morning when you wake!

Ethel M. Hewitt [18

"BECAUSE OF YOU"

SWEET have I known the blossoms of the morning
Tenderly tinted to their hearts of dew:

But now my flowers have found a fuller fragrance,
Because of you.

Long have I worshiped in my soul's enshrining
High visions of the noble and the true-
Now all my aims and all my prayers are purer,
Because of you.

Wise have I seen the uses of life's labor;

To all its puzzles found some answering clue. But now my life has learned a nobler meaning, Because of you.

In the past days I chafed at pain and waiting,
Grasping at gladness as the children do;
Now it is sweet to wait and joy to suffer,
Because of you.

In the long years of silences that part us

Dimmed by my tears and darkened to my view, Close shall I hold my memories and my madness, Because of you.

Whether our lips shall touch or hands shall hunger,
Whether our love be fed or joys be few,
Life will be sweeter and more worth the living,
Because of you.

Sophia Almon Hensley [1866