WHEN THE ROSES GO.
You tell me you love me; you bid me believe
That never such lover could mean to deceive.
You tell me the tale which a million times
Has been told, and talked, and sung in rhymes;
You rave o'er my "eyes" and my "beautiful hair,"
And swear to be true, as they always swear;
But the wrinkles will grow, and the roses go,
And lovers are rovers oft, you know,
When the roses go.
I have heard of a woman, sweet and fair,
With dewy lips and shining hair,
And you pledged to her, on your bended knee,
The self-same vow you make to me.
She was fairer than I, I know;
She was pure and true, and she loved you so;
But the wrinkles will grow and the roses go—
How she learned that trouble comes, you know,
When the roses go.
You're a man in each outward sense, I trow,
With the stamp of a god on your peerless brow.
You hold my hand in your thrilling clasp,
And my heart grows weak in your subtle grasp,
Till I blush in the light of your tender eyes,
And dream of a far-of paradise—
Almost forgetting that ever from there
Another was turned in her bleak despair.
But the wrinkles will grow, and the roses go—
I will answer you, love, my love, you know,
When the roses go.
THE DIFFERENCE.
With odds all against him, struggling to gain,
From fortune a name, with life to maintain,
Toiling in sunshine, toiling in rain,
Never waiting a blessing Heaven-sent,
Working and winning his way as he went—
Whether he starved, or sumptuously fared,
Nobody knew and nobody cared.
With success-crowned effort that fate had defied,
That wrought out from fortune what favor denied,
Standing aloof from the world in his pride;
The niche he has carved on fame's slippery wall
Friends are proclaiming with heraldry-call.
His Croesus-bright scepter has magical sway,
Yester's indifference solicits to-day.
His daring his triumph, how daily he fares,
Every one knows, and anxiously cares.