AT Venice, while the twilight hour
Yet lit a gray-walled garden space,
I saw a woman fair of face
Pass, as in thought, from flower to flower.
The roses, haply, something said,
For here and there she bent her head,
Till, startled from their hidden nest
In the covert of her breast,
Blushes rose, like fluttered birds,
At those naughty rosy words.
One need not wise as Portia be
To guess love held her heart in fee.
Prudently a matron rose
For her confidence she chose:
Whispering, she took its breath,
And, for what its fragrance saith,
Smiling knelt, and kissed it twice;
Caught it, held it, kissed it thrice.
Ah! her kiss the rose had killed;
Wrecked, in tender disarray
On the ground its petals lay,
All its autumn fate fulfilled.
Swiftly from her paling face
Fell the rosy flush apace.
Had her kiss recalled a bliss
Life for evermore should miss?
Had there been a fatal hour
When false lips had hurt the flower
Of love, and now its sad estate
She saw in that dead rose's fate?
Who may know? A little while
She lingered with a doubtful smile;
Took then a younger rose, whose slips
The garden knew, and with her lips
Its color matched. What gracious words
It said might know the garden birds,—
Something, perchance, that liked her well;
But roses kiss, and never tell.

What confession, what dear boon,
Heard that ruddy priest of June?
Was it a mad gypsy-rose
Fortunes eager to disclose,
Gravely whispering predictions
Rich with love's unending fictions,
Saying nonsense good to hear,
Like a pleasant-mannered seer?
Gypsy palms are crossed with gold,
But my lady, gaily bold,
In the antique coin of kisses
Paid for prophecy of blisses;
And, to make assurance sure,
This conspirator demure
Murmured, in a pretty way,
What her prophet ought to say.
Low she laughed, and then was gone;
My pleasant little play was done.
Alone I sit and muse. Below,
Black gondolas glide to and fro,
Like shadows that have stolen away
From centuried arch and palace gray.
Then, as if out of memory brought,
The sequel of my garden masque
Comes silently, by fancy wrought,—
A gift I had not cared to ask.

Lo! where the terraced marble ends,
Barred by the sweetbrier's scented bound,
The lady of my dream descends,
And day by day the garden ground
Her footsteps know; with lingering gait,
She wanders early, wanders late,
Or, sadly patient, on the lawn
Each day renews her gentle trust,
When, from the busy highway drawn,
Float high its curves of sunlit dust.
The children of her garden greet
With counsel innocent and sweet
The coming of her constant feet.
She whispers, and their low replies
Bring gladness to her lips and eyes;
She will no other company;
For her the flowers have come to be
All of life's dim reality.
Purple pansies, gold embossed,
That in love had once been crossed,
Murmur, We have loved and lost;
And the cool blue violets
Sigh, We wait for life's regrets.
Thistles gray, beyond the fence,
Mutter prickly common-sense;
While the lilies, pale and bent,
Say, We too sinned, are penitent;
Only that can bring content.
Red generations of the rose
Unheeded passed to death's repose;
The peach upon the crumbling wall,
With springtide bloom and autumn fall,
No proverb had to foster fear,
No time-worn wisdom brought her near.
The willows o'er two noisy brooks,
In marriage come to sober mood,
Were but green slips, that eve of May;
Now, underneath their shade she looks,
And smiling says, 'Time must be rude,
To keep him thus so many a day.'
They tell her he is dead! 'Ah! nay,'
She answers; 'he but rode away,
And he will come again in May.
And I can wait,' she says, and stands
With roses in her thin white hands.
Childlike, with innocent replies,
She meets the world. Wide open lies
Her book of life; Time turns the leaves,
Like each to each, because she grieves
Nor less nor more, save when in fear,
On one dark eve of all the year,
Dismayed lest love's divine distress
Be dulled by time's forgetfulness.