Rose Leaves When The Rose Is Dead

See how the rose leaves fall     The rose leaves fall and fade:     And by the wall, in dusk funereal,     How leaf on leaf is laid,     Withered and soiled and frayed.     How red the rose leaves fall     And in the ancient trees,     That stretch their twisted arms about the hall,     Burdened with mysteries,     How sadly sighs the breeze.     How soft the rose leaves fall     The rose leaves drift and lie:     And over them dull slugs and beetles crawl,     And, palely glimmering by,     The glow-worm trails its eye.     How thick the rose leaves fall     And strew the garden way,     For snails to slime and spotted toads to sprawl,     And, plodding past each day,     Coarse feet to tread in clay.     How fast they fall and fall     Where Beauty, carved in stone,     With broken hands veils her dead eyes; and, tall,     White in the moonlight lone,     Looms like a marble moan.     How slow they drift and fall     And strew the fountained pool,     That, in the nymph-carved basin by the wall,     Reflects in darkness cool.     Ruin made beautiful.     How red the rose leaves fall     Fall and like blood remain     Upon the dial's disc, whose pedestal,     Black-mossed and dark with stain,     Crumbles in sun and rain.     How wan they seem to fall     Around one where she stands     Dim in their midst, beyond the years' recall,     Reaching pale, passionate hands     Into the past's vague lands.     How still they fall and fall     Around them where they meet     As oft of old: she in her gem-pinned shawl     Of white; and he, complete     In black from head to feet.     How faint the rose leaves fall     Around them where, it seems,     He holds her clasped parting from her and all     His heart's young hopes and dreams     There in the moon's thin beams.     Around them rose leaves fall     And in the stress and urge     Of winds that strew them lightly over all,     With deep, autumnal surge,     There seems to rise a dirge:     "See how the rose leaves fall     Upon thy dead, O soul!     The rose leaves of the love that once in thrall     Held thee beyond control,     Making thy heart's world whole.     "God help them still to fall     Around thee, bowed above     The face within thy heart, beneath the pall!     The perished face thereof,     The beautiful face of Love."