They have advanced to civilian vales, Building new barracks for sweet nightingales. Yet they revert in their leisure sedate, Seeing in visions that old castle gate; Still they remember their days in the mill-- Down in the casemates of old “Castle Bill.” THE ROLL OF THE ROSES We called the roll of the roses And all of the front rank red, Were present and ready for duty, To serve with the living or dead. We called the roll of the roses, But where were the yellow and white? With the troubadours on a terrace-- Somewhere secure in the night. We break no pledge to the poppies Or the culls of a country lane; Our own were alone in denying The levies we sought in vain. Now who shall match us a color In the talk of a kinship fair, When none of the white or the yellow, But only the red were there. We called the roll of the roses On the field where the roses fell; And a distant down made answer With a troubadour tolling a bell. THE GOSSIPS The rose bud that grew by the settle, Bowed low to the gossiping thrusts; The poet was praising the nettle, The nettle that nobody trusts. The pansies were painted in postures, The poppies have stood on their toes; But long before mention of Moses Her rivals have flouted the rose. Oh! Sweetness a-sway by the settle, Be still on thy beautiful stem; For love never clung to the nettle-- The nettle that burns to condemn. Fear not for a moment’s defection, Though pansies and poppies may pose; For after a bit of reflection The rover returns to the rose. TO-MORROW The sun shall shine in ages yet to be, The musing moon illumine pastures dim, And afterward a new nativity For all who slept the dreamless interim. The starry brocade of the summer night Is linked to us as part of our estate; And every bee that wings its sidelong flight Assurance of a sweeter, fairer fate. The blazoned humming-bird hath made it plain-- It seeks ravines where wildings wreathe each wall; And there succeeding broods are marked again By rainbows o’er a rambling waterfall. When you return, the youngest of the seers, Released from fetters of ancestral pose, There will be beauty waiting down the years-- Revisions of the ruby and the rose. THE ROSE OF REST From the water-gate of Pekin, where the latticed lanterns glow, Eastward to the Cherry Gardens in the heart of Tokio, There is none who may outrank her, none who answers love’s behest, None of all my seven daughters like the little Rose of Rest. Her eyes are questing colors, matchless mirrors of delight, The turquoise dawn of China and the duskiness of night. Her lips are pouting poppies by love’s tender tempests blown, They tremble with the secrets only Buddha could have known.