A withered Rose

How shall I call you now a flower— tell me, oh withered rose! How call you that beloved for whom The nightingale’s heart glows?

The winds’ soft ripples cradled you And rocked your bygone hours, And your name once was Laughing Rose In the country of flowers;

With the dawn breezes that received Your favours you once played, Like a perfumer’s vase your breath Sweetened the garden glade.

These eyes are full, and drops like dew Fall thick on you again; This desolate heart finds dimly its Own image in your pain,

A record drawn in miniature Of all its sorry gleaming; My life was all a life of dreams, And you—you are its meaning.

I tell my stories as the reed Plucked from its native wild Murmurs; oh Rose, listen! I tell The grief of hearts exiled