A Fancy from Fontenelle

Austin Dobson (1840–1921)

“De mémoires de Roses on n’a point vu mourir le Jardinier.”

THE ROSE in the garden slipped her bud,

And she laughed in the pride of her youthful blood,

As she thought of the Gardener standing by—

“He is old—so old! And he soon must die!”

The full Rose waxed in the warm June air,

And she spread and spread till her heart lay bare;

And she laughed once more as she heard his tread—

“He is older now! He will soon be dead!”

But the breeze of the morning blew, and found

That the leaves of the blown Rose strewed the ground;

And he came at noon, that Gardener old,

And he raked them gently under the mold.

And I wove the thing to a random rhyme:

For the Rose is Beauty; the Gardener, Time.