Klondyke Roses

When melts at last the lingering snow

In sunny days of May or June,

Amid the velvet mosses grow

Shy roses, fragrant-smelling.

A fated sisterhood is theirs,

They sigh their souls out wistfully;

No bee makes love to them or hears

Their tender love a-telling.

They dream, perhaps, of distant lands,

( O lands, that seem as far-off spheres;)

Of love-lit eyes and tender hands

That pluck far happier roses.

But while they dream the days pass by

And August comes with ebon nights,

And sombre is September's sky —

And then their sad life closes.