"A Rose With a Broken Stem"   Words by Carroll Fleming, Music by Everett J. Evans

At a gay masquerade in a ballroom grand,
Two beautiful maids were there,
And one bore a rose in her jeweled hand, the other a lily fair,
"The Rose shall be queen" then the dancers said,
The Lily turned away,
But the beautiful Rose sadly bowed her head,
As she heard an old gypsy say:

Refrain: She's just a rose with a broken stem,
             That is plucked and then cast aside,
             The garden of love has no place for them,
             When their fragrance and perfume have died,
             For you can't take the stain from a woman's name,
             Nor a flaw from the purest gem,
             She chooses her path and must bear the blame,
             She's a rose with a broken stem.

When the mask fell away from the gypsy's brow,
They knew what the Rose had done,
For she had been false to the sacred vow,
She gave to the gypsy's son,
Her heart she had sold for a miser's gold,
A miser old and gray,
And the bells that had rung for her wedding tolled,
For the lad that had passed away.

Transcribed from digitalized sheet music found here:
"A Rose With a Broken Stem" sheet music.

An excerpt from a review:
"...One of the best examples from such a group, 1931's "The Rose With a Broken Stem," by Clay Everhart & the North Carolina Cooper Boys, is fascinating because the Piedmont string sound is pure Tarheel, but the tune itself seems to be a product of Tin Pan Alley. The theme of lost innocence and faded glory seem well suited to a group struggling to maintain a regional culture even as a new world began to intrude from over the Blue Ridge Mountains."
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/36239