In a Rose Garden
Under the above title, John Bennett, of Charleston, S. C., wrote the following verses:
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We will not care at all;
It will not matter then a whit,
The honey or the gall.
The Summer days that we have known
Will all forgotten be and flown;
The garden will be overgrown
Where now the roses fall.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We will not mind the pain;
The throbbing, crimson tide of life
Will not have left a stain.
The song we sing together, dear,
The dream we dream together here,
Will mean no more than means a tear
Amid a Summer rain.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
The grief will all be o’er;
The sea of care will surge in vain
Upon a careless shore.
These glasses we turn down to-day,
Here at the parting of the way,
We shall be wineless then as they,
And will not mind it more.
A hundred years from now, dear heart,
We’ll neither know nor care
What came of all life’s bitterness,
Or followed love’s despair.
Then fill the glasses up again,
And kiss me through the rose-leaf rain;
We’ll build one castle more in Spain
And dream one more dream there.