The Rose
No words have power to utter half the feeling
Which through my being flows,
While moorland music is around me stealing,
To hail the summer rose.
How love I silence and the rush of waters,
The brooklet’s gentle tone,
And solitude with her dear twilight daughters,
Musing o’er bypaths lone!
And when the sunset cleaves the waves asunder,
I read their crests of red,
Or steal enraptured through the moon’s white wonder
With star-shafts over-head.
Still hear I psalms where wells their treasures render,
And rush and rock abound,
As sorrow healing and as sweetly tender
As when my harp I found.
And so ‘twill be till life’s last lay is written,
And twilight’s portals close:
When tottering time with death’s sharp scythe is smitten,
My heart is with the rose.
