If you should be abroad to-night
And choose the rose-walk for delight,
Who knows but you may chance to meet
Her ladyship on silent feet —
A swish of skirts, a scent of musk,
A flitting shadow in the dusk.

She will not stir the fallen leaves,
Nor brush you with her silken sleeves;
Her little buckled shoes will pass
And never bend one blade of grass;
Only a gleam of powdered hair
Will show my lady pacing there.

What dreams she dreamt here long ago,
What hopes sped with her to and fro,
What wistful memories, what tears,
In her withdrawn and widowed years,
Perhaps the last red rose could tell,
But roses keep their secret well.

Each Hallow-E'en she flits again
By starlight through her old domain,
A happy phantom come to see
The gardens of her memory.
To-night we are but trespassers;
The rose-walk and its past are hers.