A FADED ROSE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 1, 7 January 1893, Page 13

A FADED ROSE.

1 TOOK up a book in a twilight room.

And from the leaves fell out a red lose. Scentless and wither'd in the dim grey gloom. Wrapp'd with its tales of long vanish'd woes Glowing with beauty it on.e bloom'd fair, Stately and proud, on a bending bough. Queen of the flowers in the summer air. Ah, what a wraith is left of it now '.

The room fades into an old garden fair, With winding alleys and leafy trees ; Perfum'd breezes laden the slumbrous air. And the soft crooning of humming bees. ‘ Be true, ray sweetheart,' a lover once said, • For true am I as the sky above !’ But oh, he is gone, and the days are dead ; There is naught left in the world to love !

Tbe roses bloom fair on the red-rose tree. In scented wreaths hang the twining vine. And the ghost of a day has conie back to me. In the faint pale sheen of white moonshine. But ah ! What is this ’ ’Tis a voice, a call ! And love has come back from days of y<>re — Love, with his beauty, with his tales, with all, Bnt the rose said, ‘ He is here no more !'

I awake from my dream in the dusk of day. With the faded rose in the twilight room, Dead as the past as the swallows own lay, And dark as my heart in its shrouded gloom Never for me will tbe red roses twine Around the tree in the sweet old way, Never the same droop the clus’ers of vine. For dead as this rose is my heart to-day.