IN A ROSE GARDEN.
A HUNDRED years from now, dear heart,
We will 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 will 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 shore.
These glasses we turn down to-day
Here at the parting of the way:
We will be wineless then as they,
And will 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 glasses 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.
I CHARGE YOU, O WINDS OF THE WEST.
I CHARGE you, O winds of the West, O winds with the wings of the dove,
That ye blow o’er the brows of my Love, breathing low that I sicken for love.
I charge you, O dews of the dawn, O tears of the star of the morn,
That ye fall at the feet of my love, with the sound of one weeping forlorn.
I charge you, O birds of the air, O birds flying home to your nest,
That ye sing in his ears of the joy that for ever has fled from my breast.
I charge you, O flowers of the Earth, O frailest of things, and most fair,
That ye droop in his path as the life in me shrivels and droops with despair.