Poetry Revisited: The Time of Roses by Laurence James Nicolson

The Time of Roses

(from Songs of Thule: 1894)

It was the time of roses,
We met, my love and I;
And Beauty’s hand had crown’d the land,
And music filled the sky.
Our souls were thrilled with rapture,
I know not how or why,
We wandered on by wood and stream,
And love was life, and life a dream.
Whate’er the spell,
I know full well
It was the time of roses
We met, my love, and I.

But when the first pale snowdrop
Was opening into flower.
My own! my own! was stricken down:
But saved from wind and shower
To keep my heart from breaking,
One little bud for dower.
One little bud a tender care
From my dead flower that was so fair,
So I will trace
A vanished face,
When my own little snowdrop
Is opening into flower.

Laurence James Nicolson (1844-1901)
Scottish poet from the Shetland Isles