‘O, my Aunt Bridget,’ I timidly said,
  ’I am tired of stitching—­I want to rest;
  O let me gather the roses instead,
  The young little roses the first and best.’

  Soft summer twilights caressing the air
  Have buried the garden in lovely gloom;
  But I knew that the eagerest roses there
  Were just beginning to think they might bloom.

  The pretty wee stars kept peeping about,
  And even peep’d in through our prison bars,
  As she gravely said, ’Who ever went out
  To gather a rose by the light of stars?’

  My heart beat fast at the beautiful phrase;
  She had not intended it, I suppose,
  But I felt I could love her all my days,
  If under the stars I might pluck one rose!

  Pleading my cause in so ardent a way,
  Almost evoking an answering glow,
  Crying, ’You once were as young and as gay’—­
  Then, she smil’d a little and let me go.

  ’Twas pleasure enough to be out of doors;
  I look’d at the stars and I felt content: 
  But it never rains, you know, but it pours,
  And the path that I had to go—­I went!

  Playing with fancies, in fanciful play,
  ‘If I want a rose,’ I demurely said,
  ’I must look for an omen to point the way,
  And I must look for it over my head.’

  So I found a star that shone in the sky,
  And mark’d how it glitter’d down on a tree,
  And felt—­but I swear that I know not why—­
  There grow the roses intended for me!

  And as I approach the shadowy boughs
  That are spreading out over earth and air,
  A gay little miracle fate allows,
  And the star appears to be sparkling there!

  Gladly I ran o’er the daisy-clad plain,
  Led by the shimmering light of the star,
  And under the tree I found—­Harry Vane
  Lying, and smoking a ‘mild cigar!’

  I started astonish’d—­he stood upright,
  And said, in a voice persuasively kind,
  ’Don’t you know that I come here every night,
  To see your shadow flit by on the blind?’

  I look’d where he pointed, as if ’twas I
  Could see my own phantom flicker and pass,—­
  And Aunt Bridget’s shadow mov’d solemnly by,
  Over the canvas that hangs by the glass!

  Oh, how could we help it?—­we laugh’d aloud
  (Birds never cease their sweet voices in spring;
  And I think in youth little laughters crowd
  And spring to our lips at everything!)

  In laughter we lost all sense of surprise;
  It seem’d only natural we should meet;
  And a star shot flaming across the skies,
  And a little glow-worm gleam’d at my feet.

  And a distant bell swung its solemn chime,
  That seem’d to me like the voice of a star;
  And I think, through a century of time,
  I shall always believe that such things are.

  And then—­it was then—­he spoke, and I heard;
  And the moon rose up, and the stars grew dim,
  And all of a sudden the nightingale-bird
  Triumphantly chanted her jubilant hymn.