The Last Rose of Summer...

Maybe not quite.   But the rose bushes at the front needed cut back before the winter winds started to pull them apart.   There are plenty of blooms still on them, so some sacrifice required.

Melancholia gone over the top is delivered by the Irish poet, Thomas Moore, who in 1805 wrote "The Last Rose of Summer".    (Not lightened, I suppose, by my sister-in-law in New Zealand choosing it to be played at her funeral as her casket was carried out into a wonderful vista of the Remarkable Mountains where she regularly climbed. )

'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter,
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?