THE LAST ROSE OF... ER... AUTUMN

With everything running later than usual in the climate this year, the last rose of summer has turned out to be the last rose of autumn-going- on-winter…

While the leaves stalwartly clung to the branches (whereas in previous years they would have long since have given up the ghost and fluttered to the ground), so the rose has bravely carried on putting forth blossoms as if the annual onslaught of frost, fog and winter winds were permanently postponed.

But now, at long last, things are getting back to the seasonal norm...

So, here is one of the last roses of summer 2006, together with the sober (some might say melancholy) sentiments of 19th Century Irish poet, Thomas Moore, as a reminder that beauty and summer - along with just about everything else in life - is but fleeting…

‘Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone:
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie wither'd,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?

[Image: © David Weeks and/or Brian Sibley: we both took pictures with the same camera, so who knows?]