The roses are bedded for winter, the tulips are planted for spring;
The robins and martins have left us; there are only the sparrows to sing.
The garden seems solemnly silent, awaiting its blankets of snow,
And I feel like a lonely old fellow with nowhere to turn or to go.
All summer I’ve hovered about them, all summer they’ve nodded at me;
I’ve wandered and waited among them the first pink of blossom to see;
I’ve known them and loved and caressed them, and now all their splendor has fled,
And the harsh winds of winter all tell me the friends of my garden are dead.
I’m a lonely old fellow, that’s certain. All winter with nothing to do
But sit by the window recalling the days when my skies were all blue;
But my heart is not given to sorrow and never my lips shall complain,
For winter shall pass and the sunshine shall give me my roses again.
And so for the friends that have vanished, the friends that they tell me are dead,
Who have traveled the road to God’s Acres and sleep where the willows are spread;
They have left me a lonely old fellow to sit here and dream by the pane,
But I know, like the friends of my garden, we shall all meet together again.
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