C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Dying Rose-Tree

Translation of Thomas Walsh

O ROSE-TREE, rose-tree, thou wert fair

When to thy cool retreat I came,

To hear and give the promise there

Our love should ever be the same.

How fair, oh then how fair, thy flowers

When his dear lap they rested on:

The buds that used to deck thy bowers

Are faded and forever gone.

’Twas sweet with water from the stream

To cool thy boughs with tender fears;

Now parched and dying do they seem,

For they are watered but with tears.

O rose-tree, rose-tree, thou wilt die;

And yet my heart thirsts more than thine:

I languish—would like thee could I,

Sweet rose-tree, this sad life resign!