| |
| A HOUSE that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master, | |
| With doors that none but the wind ever closes, | |
| Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster; | |
| It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses. | |
| |
| I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary; | 5 |
| ‘I wonder,’ I say, ‘who the owner of those is. | |
| ‘Oh, no one you know,’ she answers me airy, | |
| ‘But one we must ask if we want any roses.’ | |
| |
| So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly | |
| There in the hush of the wood that reposes, | 10 |
| And turn and go up to the open door boldly, | |
| And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses. | |
| |
| ‘Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?’ | |
| ’Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses. | |
| ‘Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you! | 15 |
| ’Tis summer again; there’s two come for roses. | |
| |
| ‘A word with you, that of the singer recalling— | |
| Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is | |
| A flower unplucked is but left to the falling, | |
| And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.’ | 20 |
| |
| We do not loosen our hands’ intertwining | |
| (Not caring so very much what she supposes), | |
| There when she comes on us mistily shining | |
| And grants us by silence the boon of her roses. | |
| |
