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I. “O, LOVE is like the roses, | |
| And every rose shall fall, | |
| For sure as summer closes | |
| They perish, one and all. | |
| Then love, while leaves are on the tree, | 5 |
| And birds sing in the bowers: | |
| When winter comes, too late ’t will be | |
| To pluck the happy flowers.” | |
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| It is a maiden singing, | |
| An ancient girl, in sooth; | 10 |
| The dizzy room is ringing | |
| With her shrill song of youth; | |
| The white keys sob as swift she tries | |
| Each shrill and shrieking scale: | |
| “O, love is like the roses!” cries | 15 |
| This muslined nightingale. | |
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| In a dark corner dozing, | |
| I close my eyes and ears, | |
| And call up, while reposing, | |
| A glimpse from other years; | 20 |
| A genre-picture, quaint and Dutch, | |
| I see from this dark seat,— | |
| ’T is full of human brightness, such | |
| As makes remembrance sweet. | |
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II. Flat leagues of endless meadows | 25 |
| (In Holland lies the scene), | |
| Where many pollard-shadows | |
| O’er nut-brown ditches lean; | |
| Gray clouds above that never break, | |
| Mists the pale sunbeams stripe, | 30 |
| With groups of steaming cattle, make | |
| A landscape “after Cuyp.” | |
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| A windmill, and below it | |
| A cottage near a road, | |
| Where some meek pastoral poet | 35 |
| Might make a glad abode; | |
| A cottage with a garden, where | |
| Prim squares of pansies grow, | |
| And, sitting on a garden-chair, | |
| A dame with locks of snow, | 40 |
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| In trim black, trussed and bodiced, | |
| With petticoat of red, | |
| And on her bosom modest | |
| A kerchief white bespread. | |
| Alas! the breast that heaves below | 45 |
| Is shrivelled now and thin, | |
| Though vestal thoughts as white as snow | |
| Still palpitate within. | |
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| Her hands are mittened nicely, | |
| And folded on her knee; | 50 |
| Her lips, that meet precisely, | |
| Are moving quietly. | |
| She listens while the dreamy bells | |
| O’er the dark flats intone,— | |
| Now come, now gone, in dying swells | 55 |
| The Sabbath sounds are blown. | |
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| Her cheek a withered rose is, | |
| Her eye a violet dim; | |
| Half in her chair she dozes, | |
| And hums a happy hymn. | 60 |
| But soft! what wonder makes her start | |
| And lift her aged head, | |
| While the faint flutterings of her heart | |
| Just touch her cheek with red? | |
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| The latch clicks; through the gateway | 65 |
| An aged wight steps slow, | |
| Then pauses, doffing straightway | |
| His broad-brimmed gay chapeau! | |
| Swallow-tailed coat of blue so grand, | |
| With buttons bright beside, | 70 |
| He wears, and in his trembling hand | |
| A nosegay, ribbon-tied. | |
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| His thin old legs trip lightly | |
| In breeches of nankeen, | |
| His wrinkled face looks brightly, | 75 |
| So rosy, fresh, and clean: | |
| For old he is and wrinkled plain, | |
| With locks of golden-gray, | |
| And leaning on a tasselled cane | |
| He hobbles on his way. | 80 |
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| O skylark, singing over | |
| The silent mill hard by, | |
| To this so happy lover | |
| Sing out with summer cry! | |
| He hears thee, though his blood is cold, | 85 |
| She hears, though deaf and weak; | |
| She stands to greet him, as of old, | |
| A blush upon her cheek. | |
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| In springtime they were parted | |
| By some sad wind of woe; | 90 |
| Forlorn and broken-hearted | |
| Each faltered, long ago; | |
| They parted: half a century | |
| Each took the path of pain,— | |
| He lived a bachelor, and she | 95 |
| Was never wooed again. | |
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| But when the summer ended, | |
| When autumn, too, was dead, | |
| When every vision splendid | |
| Of youth and hope was fled, | 100 |
| Again these twain came face to face | |
| As in the long ago; | |
| They met within a sunless place | |
| In the season of the snow. | |
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| “O, love is like the roses, | 105 |
| Love comes and love must flee! | |
| Before the summer closes | |
| Love’s rapture and love’s glee!” | |
| O peace! for in the garden there | |
| He bows in raiment gay, | 110 |
| Doffs hat, and with a courtly air | |
| Presents his fond bouquet. | |
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| One day in every seven, | |
| While church-bells softly ring, | |
| The happy, silent heaven | 115 |
| Beholds the selfsame thing: | |
| The gay old boy within the gate, | |
| With ribbons at his knee!— | |
| “When winter comes is love too late?” | |
| O Cupid, look and see! | 120 |
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| O, talk not of love’s rapture, | |
| When youthful lovers kiss; | |
| What mortal sight may capture | |
| A scene so sweet as this? | |
| Beside her now he sits and glows, | 125 |
| While prim she sits, and proud, | |
| Then, spectacles upon his nose, | |
| Reads the week’s news aloud! | |
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| Pure, with no touch of passion, | |
| True, with no tinge of pain; | 130 |
| Thus, in sweet Sabbath fashion, | |
| They live their loves again. | |
| She sees in him a happy boy,— | |
| Swift, agile, amorous-eyed; | |
| He sees in her his own heart’s joy,— | 135 |
| Youth, hope, love, vivified! | |
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| Content there he sits smoking | |
| His long Dutch pipe of wood; | |
| Gossiping oft and joking, | |
| As a gay lover should. | 140 |
| And oft, while there in company | |
| They smile for love’s sweet sake, | |
| Her snuff-box black she hands, and he | |
| A grave deep pinch doth take! | |
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| There, gravely juvenescent, | 145 |
| In sober Sabbath joy, | |
| Mingling the past and present, | |
| They sit, a maid and boy! | |
| “O, love is like the roses!”—No! | |
| Thou foolish singer, cease! | 150 |
| Love finds his fireside mid the snow, | |
| And smokes the pipe of peace! | |
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