Sometime, some where
Always I hoped to find again
The rose whose trusses of pearl-
Shell-petaled flowers
Climbed to my first window-sill.
My mother did not know its name.

Some where, some time
That flourishing tree, whose buds, sun-warm
Opened gold-stemmed on the wall
Centres of sweet small roses
Whose petals fell too soon 
I hoped to find.

But in no catalogue, no visited garden
My mother’s nameless rose, until
Today in Italy, where summer
In multitude is blooming,
By a ruined wall I came
Upon a bower, and did not dare

To look too close, fearing to find
That rose too a stranger, yet
When I came near each shell-pearl petal 
Slipped into memory’s place:
‘Look, we are here,’ they told me, ‘then
Is now again.’ Almost.

I believed them, for they were the same
As in those childhood summers past,
Those withered petals made anew;
But I was not, for years between,
Tears and estrangement, my mother’s sorrow
No flowers could comfort, nor mine now.