Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy (1844–1881)

Song: ‘I made another garden, yea’ (from Music and Moonlight)

I MADE another garden, yea,

For my new love;

I left the dead rose where it lay,

And set the new above.

Why did the summer not begin?

Why did my heart not haste?

My old love came and walked therein,

And laid the garden waste.

She entered with her weary smile,

Just as of old;

She looked around a little while,

And shivered at the cold.

Her passing touch was death to all,

Her passing look a blight;

She made the white rose-petals fall,

And turned the red rose white.

Her pale robe, clinging to the grass

Seemed 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 turned back at the last to wait,

And say farewell once more.