Volume Ii Part 43 (1/2)

Lizette Woodworth Reese [1856-1935]

AMANTIUM IRAE

When this, our rose, is faded, And these, our days, are done, In lands profoundly shaded From tempest and from sun: Ah, once more come together, Shall we forgive the past, And safe from worldly weather Possess our souls at last?

Or in our place of shadows Shall still we stretch a hand To green, remembered meadows, Of that old pleasant land?

And vainly there foregathered, Shall we regret the sun?

The rose of love, ungathered?

The bay, we have not won?

Ah, child! the world's dark marges May lead to Nevermore, The stately funeral barges Sail for an unknown sh.o.r.e, And love we vow to-morrow, And pride we serve to-day: What if they both should borrow Sad hues of yesterday?

Our pride! Ah, should we miss it, Or will it serve at last?

Our anger, if we kiss it, Is like a sorrow past.

While roses deck the garden, While yet the sun is high, Doff sorry pride: for pardon, Or ever love go by.

Ernest Dowson [1867-1900]

IN A ROSE GARDEN

A hundred years from now, dear heart, We shall not care at all.

It will not matter then a whit, The honey or the gall.

The summer days that we have known Will all forgotten be and flown; The garden will be overgrown Where now the roses fall.

A hundred years from now, dear heart, We shall not mind the pain; The throbbing crimson tide of life Will not have left a stain.

The song we sing together, dear, The dream we dream together here, Will mean no more than means a tear Amid a summer rain.

A hundred years from now, dear heart, The grief will all be o'er; The sea of care will surge in vain Upon a careless sh.o.r.e.

These gla.s.ses we turn down to-day Here at the parting of the way-- We shall be wineless then as they, And shall not mind it more.

A hundred years from now, dear heart, We'll neither know nor care What came of all life's bitterness, Or followed love's despair.

Then fill the gla.s.ses up again, And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain; We'll build one castle more in Spain, And dream one more dream there.

John Bennett [1865-

”G.o.d BLESS YOU, DEAR, TO-DAY”

If there be graveyards in the heart From which no roses spring, A place of wrecks and old gray tombs From which no birds take wing, Where linger buried hopes and dreams Like ghosts among the graves, Why, buried hopes are dismal things, And lonely ghosts are knaves!