My Rose! My Rose! I loved you so;
With tireless eyes I watched you grow;
From fields afar your roots were brought,
Your life was all my own, I thought.

I proudly saw your leaves unfold,
No King might buy you with his gold;
So sweet you were, so wondrous fair
No Queen should bind you in her hair.

When Northern winds were loud and chill,
And frosts were whitening vale and hill,
I said, — Not any blast that blows
Shall play too roughly with my Rose. —

If suns above you fiercely beat,
I screened you from their glare and heat,
And prayed that only gentlest dew
And softest rain might water you.

On shining slope, in shaded grot,
Were countless blooms. I saw them not,
Nor missed I them in any wise,
Though dead they lay before my eyes.

One day, just when the Sun was low,
The patient Gardener, walking slow,
Paused by my Rose-tree for a while,
Then looked at me with curious smile.

I scarcely dared to lift my eyes,
I knew he was both kind and wise,
And all too plain my heart could guess
His gaze had pierced my selfishness.

He spoke no word of praise or blame;
Just smiled on my and named my name,
And raised his hand as if to bless;
Then left me there in loneliness.

Next morn, in distant garden close,
Deep-rooted, radiant, grew my Rose;
I looked at it through palings tall —
My Rose that missed me not at all!

How fair it was! I grew content,
So plain the thing the Gardener meant;
In days or centuries yet to be
The rose would be returned to me!

And now I notice, when I pass,
The golden sheen on grain and grass,
And kin to me in all their needs
Are common flowers and wayside weeds.

My Rose! My Rose! I loved you so;
With tireless eyes I watched you grow;
From fields afar your roots were brought,
Your life was all my own, I thought.

I proudly saw your leaves unfold,
No King might buy you with his gold;
So sweet you were, so wondrous fair
No Queen should bind you in her hair.

When Northern winds were loud and chill,
And frosts were whitening vale and hill,
I said, — Not any blast that blows
Shall play too roughly with my Rose. —

If suns above you fiercely beat,
I screened you from their glare and heat,
And prayed that only gentlest dew
And softest rain might water you.

On shining slope, in shaded grot,
Were countless blooms. I saw them not,
Nor missed I them in any wise,
Though dead they lay before my eyes.

One day, just when the Sun was low,
The patient Gardener, walking slow,
Paused by my Rose-tree for a while,
Then looked at me with curious smile.

I scarcely dared to lift my eyes,
I knew he was both kind and wise,
And all too plain my heart could guess
His gaze had pierced my selfishness.

He spoke no word of praise or blame;
Just smiled on my and named my name,
And raised his hand as if to bless;
Then left me there in loneliness.

Next morn, in distant garden close,
Deep-rooted, radiant, grew my Rose;
I looked at it through palings tall —
My Rose that missed me not at all!

How fair it was! I grew content,
So plain the thing the Gardener meant;
In days or centuries yet to be
The rose would be returned to me!

And now I notice, when I pass,
The golden sheen on grain and grass,
And kin to me in all their needs
Are common flowers and wayside weeds.