The reign of the Roses
Anonymous
Eleanor
Over! the sweet summer closes,
The reign of the roses is done;
Over and gone with the roses,
And over and gone with the sun.
[Here; but our sun in Aquitaine lasts longer. I would I were in
Aquitaine again -- your north chills me.]
Over! the sweet summer closes,
And never a flower at the close;
Over and gone with the roses,
And winter again and the snows.
[That was not the way I ended it first--but unsymmetrically,
preposterously, illogically, out of passion, without art -- like a
song of the people. Will you have it? The last Parthian shaft of a
forlorn Cupid at the King's left breast, and all left-handedness and
under-handedness.]
And never a flower at the close,
Over and gone with the roses,
Not over and gone with the rose.
[True, one rose will outblossom the rest, one rose in a bower. I speak
after my fancies, for I am a Troubadour, you know, and won the violet
at Toulouse; but my voice is harsh here, not in tune, a nightingale
out of season; for marriage, rose or no rose, has killed the golden
violet.]