IN ROSE TIME
----- by Willa Sibert Cather

Oh this is the joy of the rose;
That it blows, And goes.
Winter lasts a five-month
Spring-time stays but one;
Yellow blow the rye-fields
When the rose is done.
Pines are clad at Yuletide
When the birch is bare,
And the holly's greenest
In the frosty air.
Sorrow keeps a stone house
Builded grim and gray;
Pleasure hath a straw thatch
Hung with lanterns gay.
On her petty savings
Niggard Prudence thrives;
Passion, ere the moonset,
Bleeds a thousand lives.
Virtue hath a warm hearth—
Folly's dead and drowned;
Friendship hath her own
when Love is underground.
Ah! for me the madness
Of the spendthrift flower,
Burning myriad sunsets
In a single hour.
For this is the joy of the rose;
That it blows, And goes.