The Spell of the Rose
“I mean to build a hall anon,And shape two turrets there,And a broad newelled stair,And a cool well for crystal water;Yes; I will build a hall anon,Plant roses love shall feed upon,And apple trees and pear.”
He set to build the manor-hall,And shaped the turrets there,And the broad newelled stair,And the cool well for crystal water;He built for me that manor-hall,And planted many trees withal,But no rose anywhere.
And as he planted never a roseThat bears the flower of love,Though other flowers throveA frost-wind moved our souls to severSince he had planted never a rose;And misconceits raised horrid shows,And agonies came thereof.
“I’ll mend these miseries,” then said I,And so, at dead of night,I went and, screened from sight,That nought should keep our souls in severance,I set a rose-bush. “This,” said I,“May end divisions dire and wry,And long-drawn days of blight.”
But I was called from earth—yea, calledBefore my rose-bush grew;And would that now I knewWhat feels he of the tree I planted,And whether, after I was calledTo be a ghost, he, as of old,Gave me his heart anew!
Perhaps now blooms that queen of treesI set but saw not grow,And he, beside its glow—Eyes couched of the mis-vision that blurred me—Ay, there beside that queen of treesHe sees me as I was, though seesToo late to tell me so!
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