Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy (1844–1881)

I MADE another garden, yea,

For my new Love;

I left the dead rose where it lay

And set the new above.

Why did my Summer not begin?

Why did my heart not haste?

My old Love came and walk’d therein,

And laid the garden waste.

She enter’d with her weary smile,

Just as of old;

She look’d around a little while

And shiver’d at the cold:

Her passing touch was death to all,

Her passing look a blight;

She made the white rose-petals fall,

And turn’d the red rose white.

Her pale robe clinging to the grass

Seem’d like a snake

That bit the grass and ground, alas!

And a sad trail did make.

She went up slowly to the gate,

And then, just as of yore,

She turn’d back at the last to wait

And say farewell once more.