The Rose-Jar   By: Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones (1882-1932)

by

THOMAS S. JONES, JR.

Author of The Path o' Dreams , etc.

[Illustration]

Clinton, New York George William Browning

Copyrighted 1906 by Thomas S. Jones, Jr.

The author desires to thank the editors of Appleton's Magazine, Everybody's Magazine, Lippincott's Magazine, The New York Times, The Smart Set, and the other publications in which the verses in this collection originally appeared, for their kind permission to reprint.

This Edition of The Rose Jar Printed by George William Browning at Clinton New York during the Summer of 1906 consists of Three Hundred copies on Deckle Edged Paper, with Twelve additional copies on Imperial Japan Vellum (Insetsu Kioku).

NUMBER 258

[Illustration: Author's signature]

To the Memory of My Mother

CONTENTS

As in a Rose Jar The Island You and I A Ballade of Old Romance A Voice from the Far Away April A Yesterday Violets A Song of Life As a Still Brook At the Window A Sea Spell The Silent Country The Sport of a God Remembrance In Days of Old We Once Built a House o' Dreams A Song of the Way In Trinity Church Yard at Sunset Where Cross Roads Part Saida In Arcady The Summer Rain Impression Derelicts The End of the Day Tristesse Interlude To You, Dear Heart Twilight The Poet The Hunchback The Little Ghosts I Know a Quiet Vale Song Immutability In the Fall o' Year Love's Song The Golden Hour The Dream Way The Spirit of Autumn On the Long Road A Postlude An Old Song Old Roses

The Rose Jar

As in a Rose Jar

As in a rose jar filled with petals sweet Blown long ago in some old garden place, Mayhap, where you and I, a little space, Drank deep of love and knew that love was fleet Or leaves once gathered from a lost retreat By one who never will again retrace Her silent footsteps one, whose gentle face Was fairer than the roses at her feet;

So, deep within the vase of memory, I keep my dust of roses fresh and dear As in the days before I knew the smart Of time and death. Nor aught can take from me The haunting fragrance that still lingers here As in a rose jar, so within my heart!

The Island

There is an island in the silent sea, Whose marge the wistful waves lap listlessly An isle of rest for those who used to be.

For ne'er an echo wakes that towering wall, Whose blackened crags answer none other call Save the lone ocean's rhythmic rise and fall.

Only the song the sea sings as she laves That sleep bound shore with sad caressing waves, The while the dead sleep sweeter in their graves.

'Tis oh! so still they sleep within each tomb, Cool in long shadows of the cypress gloom, Breathing in death the moon flower's rank perfume.

They know not when slow barges on the mere Enter the portals of that place austere Enter and so forever disappear!

And in this island of a silent sea, Whose marge e'er wistful waves lap listlessly, Is rest, is peace for all eternity.

You and I

Over the hills where the pine trees grow, With a laugh to answer the wind at play. Why do I laugh? I do not know, But you and I once passed this way.

Down in the hollow now white with snow My heart is singing a song today. Why do I sing? I do not know, But you and I were here in May.

A Ballade of Old Romance

When April spreads her mantle green Across the pasture lands of snow, And Spring's first scarlet breasts are seen Where treetops rustle to and fro; Then come fair fragrant dreams as though Our lightest fancy to entrance And paint us what we fain would know Adown the lanes of Old Romance.

Anon, we see the golden sheen Of burnished mail the sunbeams throw, Flashing the poplars tall between, As knights ride by to meet the foe; Or, mayhap, shepherd lads who blow On slender pipes, a pastoral dance Ah, strong were they in weal and woe Adown the lanes of Old Romance!