10/14/2026
Photo of the last rose on the grounds here at Rosemount, Oct. 2026
An October Garden by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
In my Autumn garden I was fair
To mourn among the scattered roses;
Alas for that last rosebud which
uncloses
To Autumn's languid sun and rain
When all the world is on the wane!
Which has not felt the sweet
constraint of June,
Nor heard the nightingale in tune.
Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,
You are but coarse compared with
roses:
More choice, more dear that rosebud
which uncloses,
Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,
That least and last which cold winds
balk;
A rose it is though least and last of all,
A rose to me though at the fall.
Christina Rossetti, born in 1830 in London, the author of Goblin Market and Other Poems, is a major Victorian poet. This particular poem was published in her posthumous 1904 collection. Photo of Christina Rossetti
