And paler grew her cheek, as worn with a wearing pain,
She said the fresh free country air would seem so sweet again,
So she went to her childhood home, as a pilgrim goes to a shrine,

And she looked down the orchard path and the meadow's clover bloom;
She stood by the stone-walled well that had mirrored her face
when a child,
She saw where the robins built, and her roses clambered wild,
And lingered lost in thought in each low and rustic room.

And she sat in the cottage door while the fair June moon
looked down
On a face as pure as its own, an innocent face, and sweet
As the roses wet with dew that grew so thick at her feet,
White, royal roses, fit for a monarch's crown.

But at night, when silence and sleep on the lonely hamlet fell
Like a spirit clad in white through the graveyard gate
she passed,
And the stars bent down to hear, "I have come to you, love,
at last,"
While through the valley solemnly sounded the midnight bell.

And her southern birds will wait her coming in vain,
Their starry eyes impatiently pierce the palm-trees' shade,
And her roses droop in their bowers, alone they'll wither
and fade.
Roses of June you are gone, but we know you will blossom again.