Explore "Roses" by Joyce Kilmer on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
(For Katherine Brègy)
I went to gather roses and twine them in a ring, / For I would make a posy, a posy for the King. / I got an hundred roses, the loveliest there be, / From the white rose vine and the pink rose bush and from the red rose tree.
But when I took my posy and laid it at His feet / I found He had His roses a million times more sweet. / There was a scarlet blossom upon each foot and hand, / And a great pink rose bloomed from His side for the healing of the land.
Now of this fair and awful King there is this marvel told, / That He wears a crown of linkèd thorns instead of one of gold. / Where there are thorns are roses, and I saw a line of red, / A little wreath of roses around His radiant head.
A red rose is His Sacred Heart, a white rose is His face, / And His breath has turned the barren world to a rich and flowery place. / He is the Rose of Sharon, His gardener am I, / And I shall drink His fragrance in Heaven when I die.