THE GRAVE’S PALE ROSES.
Reading edition
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BY C. F. ORNE.
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On the couch of her suffering, meekly,
Like a lily so wan and pale,
She lay in her trance-like slumber,
A slumber for bliss or bale.
He sat and watched beside her,
To whom her young life was dear,
From his eyes the sad dew of sorrow
Fell silently, tear by tear.
The hours passed unseen and unheeded
Till the dawning grew bright in the skies,
Then her white lids, with languid unclosing,
Revealed the soft light of her eyes.
She pressed the last kiss on his forehead,
And murmured in music so low,
“On my grave plant the pale blooming roses
That only a summer-life know.”
She slept: and they laid her with weeping,
In the greenwood so solemn and still:
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.