I'll tell you a story about two young brothers.
Like fire and smoke, that's what was said.
Always together, laughing and singing,
Sharing adventures, sharing their bread.

One day these two brothers both became lovers.
Yes! They both fell in love at the very same time.
Though always before they'd shared all their secrets,
This was a secret they would not confide.

Each of the brothers went into the garden.
One picked a red rose, the other a white.
They rode off at sunset, not one word between them
In opposing directions, into the night.

At the balcony window of her father's veranda
Rosa is anxiously scanning the street
Pablo is late now, soon Hector will ride up
This cannot happen! They surely will meet!

Rosa hears hoof beats from different directions,
Riders approaching along cobbled streets.
Each bearing a rose, and a heart full of passion
Brothers no more, but two rivals that meet.

A challenge is offered and is quickly accepted.
Their swords are both drawn before Rosa can speak.
She cries out to stop them, their blood's screaming louder.
They fight like two madmen and fall at her feet.

Their life ebbing from them, they lie there before her,
Rosa is sobbing, "Oh what have I done?"
She kisses their lips, so cold now and pallid,
And sheds her tears on them, so soon to be gone.

Bending over her lovers, they whisper to her,
"Take these two roses, and plant them tonight
on each side of your window, they'll grow up together.
Our love will be with you, though we die in this fight."

That's the story he told me, when I was a small boy,
When I asked my papa of that house on the right,
With it's balcony window grown over with roses,
Twining together, the red and the white.

And each day at sunset, Rosa goes to the old church.
She kneels at the altar to say her long prayers.
Lighting two candles before the Mother of Mercy,
One red and one white rose she lays gently there.