Within the courtyard of my home
There grows a rose-tree fair.
The passers-by all envy me
Those roses bright and rare!

In every rose there is a grief!
Some dexterous knife indeed
Seems to have pierced a thousand hearts;
The sunlight makes them bleed.

Like tears appear the dewdrops clear
It wears at break of day.
Who knows the mysteries it hides,
Of which it naught may say?

Its color and its perfume strange
Thrill to the bosom's core;
He who has once that fragrance breathed
Forgets it nevermore.

The fairest daughter of the Czar
Asked for my roses red
To weave a rich triumphal wreath
To crown her father's head.

'Pardon, your Highness, but my flowers
I could not bear to see
Adorn a chain to strangle men
Aspiring to be free.'

An elegant, proud Cardinal
For roses asked one day,
Upon his altar and his board
Their beauty to display.

'Your Eminence, excuse me, pray!
I did not nurse their grace
To make a table's garland bright,
Or deck an altar-place.'

With sad tears running down her cheeks,
To bitter grief a prey,
A maiden with an angel's heart
Came to my door today.

'Give me two roses, only two!'
She pleaded sighing deep;
'They will make sweet the lowly grave
Where lies my love asleep!'

Without a word, while fast as hers
My tears began to fall,
For that sweet maiden in her grief
I plucked my roses all.

To bring her ruddy offering
She flew with footstep light;
And straightway on my rose-tree bloomed
A myriad roses white.