II: Big Sea
Poem
Sitting in my little attic room that spring, I thought a lot about Mary after she went away. Then after a while, I didn’t think about her so much. But when I did, I felt sad. So one day I wrote this poem (that later Grant Still set to music) which I called, “The Breath of a Rose”:[1]
Love is like dew
On lilacs at dawn:
Comes the swift sun
And the dew is gone.Love is like star-light
In the sky at morn:
Star-light that dies
When day is born.Love is like perfume
In the heart of a rose:
The flower withers,
The perfume goes—Love is no more
Than the breath of a rose,
No more
Than the breath of a rose.
- Reprinted by permission of G. Schirmer, Inc., from whom the musical setting may be obtained. ↵