Another Boehme with a tougher book / And subtler meanings of what roses say.

All June I bound the rose in sheaves, Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves.

It was roses, roses, all the way, / With myrtle mixed in my path like mad.

'Twas a yellow rose, By that south window of the little house, My cousin Romney gathered with his hand On all my birthdays, for me. save the last; And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough, For roses to stay after.

A white rosebud for a guerdon.

"For if I wait," said she, "Till time for roses be,-- For the moss-rose and the musk-rose, Maiden-blush and royal-dusk rose,-- "What glory then for me In such a company?-- Roses plenty, roses plenty And one nightingale for twenty?"