Roses and Lilies by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Name: Roses and Lilies
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox

"Roses and Lilies" is a lyric poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in which a speaker wrestles with an agonizing romantic dilemma: two women, Rose and Lily, each embodying a distinct and irresistible ideal of beauty and feeling, compete for the speaker's devotion, and the speaker finds it impossible to choose between them. Rose is vivid, bright, and blithe — a dark-eyed, warm-lipped girl whose presence stirs passion and a sense of earthly paradise. The speaker imagines laying his heart at her feet, losing himself in her gaze, and drifting into an Eden-like state of bliss while holding her soft, clinging hand. Rose represents sensory richness, warmth, and the intoxication of romantic ardor. Lily, by contrast, is lunar and ethereal — pale-cheeked, golden-haired, tender, and otherworldly. Her smile lifts the speaker toward heaven rather than Eden; her silken hair falls like a veil over brow and cheek. Where Rose is earthly delight, Lily is spiritual elevation. She is the "ocean pearl," cool and luminous where Rose is warm and dark. The poem's central tension is not merely preference but impossibility: the speaker loves both women equally and completely, yet marriage and fidelity demand a single choice. The refrain — "I cannot wear them both" / "I cannot wed them both" — punctuates each stanza, insisting on the exclusivity that makes the dilemma genuinely painful rather than a pleasant fantasy. The speaker is not dithering out of shallow indecision but suffering from a surfeit of genuine feeling split between two incompatible objects. Wilcox structures the poem as a sustained comparison, alternating attention between Rose and Lily stanza by stanza, giving each woman her full due before returning to the paralysis of the speaker's predicament. The floral names are not incidental: roses connote passion, blood, and the senses; lilies connote purity, moonlight, and the spiritual. The speaker is thus torn between two archetypal modes of love — carnal and celestial, earthly and divine — a tension Wilcox returns to throughout much of her work. The poem's resolution, to the extent it offers one, is none at all. It ends in the same unresolved repetition with which it began, the two names — Rose, Lily — placed side by side without hierarchy or conclusion. The poem does not moralize, does not elevate one love over the other, and does not rescue the speaker from his impasse. Wilcox allows the feeling to stand as it is: genuine, dual, and irreconcilable.

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox · First published 1873 · Genre: Poetry, Love Poetry, Romance · 268 words

First lines

Roses and Lilies, both are sweet; / Lily and Rose, both are fair; / But which to gather for mine alway, / Which to gather, and keep, and wear, / That is the question that bothers me, / For I cannot wear them both, you see.

Rose is the brightest and blithest of girls: / I could lay my heart at her tiny feet, / And gaze forever in those dark eyes, / And kiss forever those lips so sweet. / And holding her soft, white, clinging hand, / Dreamily float into Eden land.

And Lily -- Lily, my ocean pearl, / So sweetly tender, so moonlight fair, / I could float to heaven upon her smile, / And kiss forever her silken hair, / That droppeth down, like a golden veil / Over her cheek, and brow -- snow pale.

Open reader

What this Textopian page supports

Roses and Lilies is listed on Textopian as a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, dated 1873 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Work type: Poem
Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Date: 1873 CE
Language: English
Genres: Poetry, Love Poetry, Romance, Victorian Literature, Sentimental Literature
Length: 268 words
Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

Good citation fit

Work identity for Roses and Lilies by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
Readability and classroom-planning context
Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph

Similar titles

Genres

Poetry — The work is structured in verse with poetic line breaks, rhythm, and stanzaic form, establishing its primary classification as poetry.
Love Poetry — The poem's central preoccupation is romantic love, specifically the speaker's emotional struggle choosing between two romantic interests.
Romance — Romantic themes pervade the work through descriptions of physical attraction, emotional idealization, and the speaker's romantic conflict.
Victorian Literature — The poem reflects Victorian-era sensibilities, conventions, and aesthetic values consistent with Ella Wheeler Wilcox's period output.