The White Rose


I see, in the garden border,
    A dream of beauty there,
For the white rose blooms, in order
    That the moon may call her fair.

In the tangled garden, lonely,
    No other bloom is nigh:
The trellised roses, only,
    And the white rose in the sky.

And all the night is sleeping
    Except the whippoorwill,
And the distant mountains keeping
    A drowsy vigil, still.

Come out to the garden, lover,
    And drink the dreaming rose,
And bid the moon discover
    The secret that she knows.

Then turn to the lady tender
    And read, in her eyes' love-light,
The meaning they surrender
    Of the rose, and the moon, and the night.


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From Joy, and Other Poems, by Danske Dandridge. Second Edition. New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons - Knickerbocker Press, 1900.