Explore "Song of a Poor Pilgrim" by George MacDonald on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Roses all the rosy way!
Roses to the rosier west / Where the roses of the day / Cling to night's unrosy breast!
Thou who mak'st the roses, why / Give to every leaf a thorn?
On thy rosy highway I / Still am by thy roses torn!
Pardon! I will not mistake / These good thorns that make me fret!
Goads to urge me, stings to wake, / For my freedom they are set.
Yea, on one steep mountain-side, / Climbing to a fancied fold, / Roses grasped had let me slide / But the thorns did keep their hold.
Out of darkness light is born, / Out of weakness make me strong: / One glad day will every thorn / Break into a rose of song.
Though like sparrow sit thy bird / Lonely on the house-top dark, / By the rosy dawning stirred / Up will soar thy praising lark;
Roses, roses all his song!
Roses in a gorgeous feast!
Roses in a royal throng, / Surging, rosing from the east!