Sad when roses pine,
Ah, but love is dearer,
Who would dare to quaff this wine
Knowing Fate the bearer,
Guileful fate of mine?

Moti, peerless flower,
Queen of love and gladness,
Tell me in this happy hour,
Will Joy turn to sadness,
And Love’s death-night lower?”

Moti, wise as lovely, pondered,
“’Mong the sunbeams I have wandered,
With the flowers friendship made;
Sweetest blossoms wither,

But alike they fade,
Roses die together,
Beauteous death is made.

Comrades e’en in death are flowers,
Always sweet are friendship’s bowers.

Lightly sorrow touches twain,
Only solitude is pain.”

* * * * *

Mild were the utterings of the cooing dove,
Who did approve
In myrtle ambuscade this tender lore;
The constant plashing of the fountain spray
Melted in easy numbers, dying away
A quiet cadence, while for evermore
Faded the eve in richest livery wove
Of Tyrian dyes and amber woof t’allure
The soft salaam of slowly sinking day.

Stars shone, and Atma said, “’Tis well to be,
The things of earth are painted pleasantly.”

     But pleasantness is light and versatile,
     And moods must change and tranquil breezes veer,
     And o’er this blissful hour there came a chill
     And sullen shadows slowly creeping near
     In lengthening lines, and murkier dusk took form
     Of all things ominous, disastrous, ill,
     And as a mid-day gloom portending storm,
     A lowering fate made prophecy of fear,
     And Atma knew the menace in the air,
     As ghostly shudderings of our fearful life
     Foretell the advent of th’ assassin’s knife. 
     Low sank his heart before the augury
     (For life was dearer on this eventide
     Than e’er before), and all dismayed, he cried,
     “These are the heralds of calamity
     That bid me hence, for all too well I know
     The pensive pageantry of mortal woe;
     O Love, my Love, this sweetest love may flee
     But ever grief has cruel constancy,
     Late I bode me with dull-shrouded sorrow,
     And well I know her doleful voice again. 
     Hark! the breezes from the nightshade borrow
     A heavy burden of lament and pain,
     And where Delight held lately sweet hey-day,
     Now like spectres pallid moonbeams play,
     Very still the little rosebud sleeps,
     Heavily the drooping myrrh tree weeps
     Sluggish tears upon the darksome mould.”

Quick then did Moti speak, by love made bold,
“No cause is there, O Love, for sad affright,
For I have read the portents of the night;
Of envy dies the glowworm when the moon
Is worshipped in the welkin, and the boon
Of costly tears
Dropped by the bleeding tree, to mortal cares
Is healing balm;
The rosebuds dream, Love, and the soft wind’s sigh
Is lullaby. 
And yet I know that sorry things befal
Sometimes, withal,
For once it was my grievous task to mourn
A turtle-dove sore wounded by a thorn.”