Vale of tempe : poems / by Madison J. Cawein [electronic text]

THE ROSE'S SECRET

WHEN down the west the new moon slipped, A curved canoe that dipped and tipped, When from the rose the dewdrop dripped,As if it shed its heart's blood slow;As softly silent as a starI climbed a lattice that I know,A window lattice, held ajarBy one slim hand as white as snow:The hand of her who set me here,A rose, to bloom from year to year.

I, who have heard the bird of JuneSing all night long beneath the moon;I, who have heard the zephyr croonSoft music 'mid spring's avenues,

Heard then a sweeter sound than these,Among the shadows and the dews—A heart that beat like any bee's,Sweet with a name—and I know whose: Her heart that, leaning, pressed on me, A rose, she never looked to see.

O star and moon! O wind and bird! Ye hearkened, too, but never heard The secret sweet, the whispered wordI heard, when by her lips his nameWas murmured.—Then she saw me there!—But that I heard was I to blame?Whom in the darkness of her hairShe thrust since I had heard the same: Condemned within its deeps to lie, A rose, imprisoned till I die.