| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | A Fancy from Fontenelle | | By Henry Austin Dobson (1840–1921) |
| | ‘De mémoires de Rose on n’a point vu mourir le Jardinier.’ |
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THE ROSE in the garden slipp’d her bud, | |
| And she laugh’d in the pride of her youthful blood, | |
| As she thought of the Gardener standing by— | |
| ‘He is old,—so old! And he soon must die!’ | |
| |
| The full Rose wax’d in the warm June air, | 5 |
| And she spread and spread till her heart lay bare; | |
| And she laugh’d once more as she heard his tread— | |
| ‘He is older now! He will soon be dead!’ | |
| |
| But the breeze of the morning blew, and found | |
| That the leaves of the blown Rose strew’d the ground; | 10 |
| And he came at noon, that Gardener old, | |
| And he raked them softly under the mould. | |
| |
| And I wove the thing to a random rhyme, | |
| For the Rose is Beauty, the Gardener Time. | | | |
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