Under the Ground

Between a garden and old tomb
Disused, a foot-path threads the clover;
And there I met the gardener's boy
Bearing some dewy chaplets over.

I marvelled, for I just had passed
The charnel vault and shunned its gloom:
" Stay, whither wend you, laden thus;
Roses! you would not these inhume? "

" Yea, for against the bridal hour
My Master fain would keep their bloom;
A charm in the dank o'the vault there is,
Yea, we the rose entomb. "