Victorian Songs: Lyrics of the Affections and Nature

by Unknown

ARTHUR O’SHAUGHNESSY.

1844-1881.

A LOVE SYMPHONY. A long the garden ways just now I heard the flowers speak; The white rose told me of your brow, The red rose of your cheek; The lily of your bended head, The bindweed of your hair: Each looked its loveliest and said You were more fair. I went into the wood anon, And heard the wild birds sing, How sweet you were; they warbled on, Piped, trilled the self-same thing. Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause, The burden did repeat, And still began again because You were more sweet. And then I went down to the sea, And heard it murmuring too, Part of an ancient mystery, All made of me and you. How many a thousand years ago I loved, and you were sweet— Longer I could not stay, and so I fled back to your feet.

I MADE ANOTHER GARDEN. I made another garden, yea, For my new love; I left the dead rose where it lay, And set the new above. Why did the summer not begin? Why did my heart not haste? My old love came and walked therein, And laid the garden waste. She entered with her weary smile, Just as of old; She looked around a little while, And shivered at the cold. Her passing touch was death to all, Her passing look a blight; She made the white rose-petals fall, And turned the red rose white. Her pale robe, clinging to the grass, Seemed like a snake That bit the grass and ground, alas! And a sad trail did make. She went up slowly to the gate; And there, just as of yore, She turned back at the last to wait, And say farewell once more.