Classic Poem

When melts at last the lingering snow
In sunny days of May or June,
Amid the velvet mosses grow
Shy roses, fragrant-smelling.
A fated sisterhood is theirs,
They sigh their souls out wistfully;
No bee makes love to them or hears
Their tender love a-telling.

They dream, perhaps, of distant lands,
(O lands, that seem as far-off spheres;)
Of love-lit eyes and tender hands
That pluck far happier roses.
But while they dream the days pass by
And August comes with ebon nights,
And sombre is September's sky--
And then their sad life closes.