Mary Poem by Alexander Anderson

Roses fade, and why not you?
Mary, in whose eyes we view
Sweetest fancies peeping through,


So that unto us they seem
Colours in a fairy's dream—
Shaded pool of woodland stream,


Where the rounded pebbles lie,
Underneath its melody:
Thus within thine earnest eye


All the happy thoughts we see
Rise in their sweet purity,
Speaking evermore of thee.


Roses fade, but thy decay
Must be very far away;
Angels live more than a day:


Yet if thou shouldst link thy fate
To the rose's blushing state,
Thou canst never shame thy mate.


Like the rose, if Death should come
And bear thee to his silent home,
Where thy kindred spirits roam,


Thou shalt leave, as a relief
Behind thee, calming down our grief,
All the fragrance of its leaf:


Thus within our hearts shall be,
For ever as a type of thee,
The incense of thy memory.