When Last I Saw This Opening Rose That Holds The Summer In Its Hand, And With Its Beauty Overflows And Sweetens Half A Shire Of Land, It Was A Black And Cindered Thing, Drearily Rocking In The Cold, The Relic Of A Vanished Spring, A Rose Abominably Old. Amid The Stainless Snows It Grinned, A Foul And Withered Shape, That Cast Ribbed Shadows, And The Gleaming Wind Went Rattling Through It As It Passed; It Filled The Heart With A Strange Dread, Hag-Like, It Made A Whimpering Sound, And Gibbered Like The Wandering Dead In Some Unhallowed Burial-Ground. Whoso On That December Day Had Seen It So Deject And Lorn, So Lone A Symbol Of Decay, Had Dreamed Of It This Summer Morn? Divined The Power That Should Relume A Flame So Spent, And Once More Bring That Blackened Being Back To Bloom, - Who Could Have Dreamed So Strange A Thing?