A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master, <br />With doors that none but the wind ever closes, <br />Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster; <br />It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses. <br /> <br />I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary; <br />'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.' <br />'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy, <br />'But one we must ask if we want any roses.' <br /> <br />So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly <br />There in the hush of the wood that reposes, <br />And turn and go up to the open door boldly, <br />And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses. <br /> <br />'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?' <br />'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses. <br />'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you! <br />'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses. <br /> <br />'A word with you, that of the singer recalling-- <br />Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is <br />A flower unplucked is but left to the falling, <br />And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.' <br /> <br />We do not loosen our hands' intertwining <br />(Not caring so very much what she supposes), <br />There when she comes on us mistily shining <br />And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.<br /><br />Robert Frost<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/asking-for-roses/
