Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy. 18441881829. Song
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? | 5 |
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; | 10 |
She look’d around a little while | |
And shiver’d with the cold: | |
Her passing touch was death to all, | |
Her passing look a blight; | |
She made the white rose-petals fall, | 15 |
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. | 20 |
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. |