Poetry Revisited: O, Gather Me the Rose by William Ernest Henley

O, Gather Me the Rose

(from A Book of Verses: 1888)

O, gather me the rose, the rose,
     While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
     And winter waits behind it!

For with the dream foregone, foregone,
     The deed forborne for ever,
The worm, regret, will canker on,
     And time will turn him never.

So well it were to love, my love,
     And cheat of any laughter
The death beneath us and above,
     The dark before and after.

The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
     The sunshine and the swallow,
The dream that comes, the wish that goes,
     The memories that follow!

William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)
English poet, critic and editor