There is a smell of roses in the room
Tea-roses, dead of bloom;
An invalid, she sits there in the gloom,
And contemplates her doom.
The pattern of the paper, and the grain
Of carpet, with its stain,
Have stamped themselves, like fever, on her brain,
And grown a part of pain.
It has been long, so long, since that one died,
Or sat there by her side;
She felt so lonely, lost, she would have cried,
But all her tears were dried.
A knock came on the door: she hardly heard;
And then a whispered word,
And someone entered; at which, like a bird,
Her caged heart cried and stirred.
And then she heard a voice; she was not wrong:
His voice, alive and strong:
She listened, while the silence filled with song
Oh, she had waited long!