Henry Kendall

Poems and Songs (1862). Amongst the Roses

   I walked through a Forest, beneath the hot noon,
   On Etheline calling and calling!
   One said:  "She will hear you and come to you soon,
   When the coolness, my brother, is falling."
   But I whispered:  "O Darling, I falter with pain!"
   And the thirsty leaves rustled, and hissed for the rain,
   Where a wayfarer halted and slept on the plain;
       And dreamt of a garden of Roses!
          Of a cool sweet place,
          And a nestling face
       In a dance and a dazzle of Roses.

   In the drouth of a Desert, outwearied, I wept,
   O Etheline, darkened with dolours!
   But, folded in sunset, how long have you slept
   By the Roses all reeling with colours?
   A tree from its tresses a blossom did shake,
   It fell on her face, and I feared she would wake,
   So I brushed it away for her sweet sake;
       In that garden of beautiful Roses!
          In the dreamy perfumes
          From ripe-red blooms
       In a dance and a dazzle of Roses.