| |
| I GREW beside a garden seat, | |
| Where happy children laugh’d and play’d, | |
| And tender lovers—dreaming—stray’d, | |
| Whilst all my budding breast was sweet; | |
| (Oh, why was I only a poor white rose!) | 5 |
| |
| Anon, the children’s mirth was o’er, | |
| The tender lovers clung and wept; | |
| Within the house a mother slept | |
| Her last long sleep, to wake no more; | |
| (Oh, why was I only a poor white rose!) | 10 |
| |
| They came and cull’d a funeral wreath, | |
| They pluck’d the white, they spared the red, | |
| They flung me on a straiten’d bed, | |
| On her cold breast who lay in death. | |
| (Oh, why was I only a poor white rose!) | 15 |
| |
| They mourn’d and sigh’d in bow’r and hall, | |
| The children cried, the lovers clung; | |
| A great bell tolled with solemn tongue, | |
| The coffin-lid leant by the wall; | |
| (Oh, why was I only a poor white rose!) | 20 |
| |
| They lifted up the coffin-lid, | |
| Strange footsteps echoed on the stair, | |
| Her children came to see her there, | |
| And kiss her ere her face was hid; | |
| (Oh, why was I only a poor white rose!) | 25 |
| |
| They wept in hall, they wept in bow’r | |
| Their tears fell o’er me as they kissed her, | |
| But the red rose weeps for her own pale sister | |
| Buried alive ’neath the grey church tow’r. | |
| (Oh, why was I only a poor white rose!) | 30 |
| |
