C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Les Roses de Sâdi

From ‘Ban and Arrière Ban’

THIS morning I vowed I would bring thee my roses;

They were thrust in the band that my bodice incloses,

But the breast-knots were broken, the roses went free.

The breast-knots were broken: the roses together

Floated forth on the wings of the wind and the weather,

And they drifted afar down the streams of the sea.

And the sea was as red as when sunset uncloses;

But my raiment is sweet from the scent of the roses,—

Thou shalt know, love, how fragrant a memory can be.