The Rose's Secret

When down the west the new moon slipped, A curved canoe that dipped and tipped, When from the rose the dewdropp dripped, As if it shed its heart's blood slow; As softly silent as a star I climbed a lattice that I know, A window lattice, held ajar By one slim hand as white as snow: The hand of her who set me here, A rose, to bloom from year to year. I, who have heard the bird of June Sing all night long beneath the moon; I, who have heard the zephyr croon Soft music 'mid spring's avenues, Heard then a sweeter sound than these, Among the shadows and the dews A heart that beat like any bee's, Sweet with a name and I know whose: Her heart that, leaning, pressed on me, A rose, she never looked to see. O star and moon! O wind and bird! Ye hearkened, too, but never heard The secret sweet, the whispered word I heard, when by her lips his name Was murmured. Then she saw me there! But that I heard was I to blame? Whom in the darkness of her hair She thrust since I had heard the same: Condemned within its deeps to lie, A rose, imprisoned till I die.