60 Years of Thorns & Roses

By Elmer Ellsworth Shelhamer

Poem

THORNS -- BUT ROSES

      Everette E. Shelhamer

 

      In every rosy-bosomed bower

     Where zephyrs mourn,

     There lurks anear each perfumed flower

     The cruel thorn.

      Lost in the labyrinthine leaves

     It hidden lies,

     And with sly treachery deceives

     With sharp surprise.

      Full many lovers of the flowers

     Have plucked their gain,

     But went away to rue sad hours,

     And suffer pain.

      E'en so amid our rose-bloom life,

     Crimson and sweet,

     There lurk the thorns of anguish, strife,

     Like awns in wheat.

      No one can boast a thornless way,

     Or roses all,

     But mankind have their tears to pay

     In sorrow's thrall.

      Ay, life doth have its thorns and throes,

     (Some hearts have swooned)

     But ah! the fragrance of the rose

     After the wound.