He placed on her grave the pale roses
Whose life bears no winter wind’s chill.
As he knelt there what bathed his wan forehead,
So gently the rose-petals moved?
The sigh of the breeze that swept o’er them,
Or the spirit of her he had loved?
When spring came again to the greenwood,
Ah—a flowerless sod was there!—
The new wife wore the pale blooming roses
In the wreaths of her raven hair.