Flowers of Passion (McKay)

The dancers have departed, dear, And the last song has been sung; The red-stained glasses mock my gaze And the fiddle lies unstrung.

And I'm alone, alone once more, Save for your sweet brown face That comes reproachfully to me In this unholy place.

I've kissed a thousand flowers, my own, Gone drunk with their perfume; But found out, when the madness passed, You were the one pure bloom.

I've come to realise at last How awful it may be To cut adrift from sacred ties And be completely free.

But life grows many flowers, my love, Within its garden wall, And passions are the strangest And the deadliest of all.