Page:Poems Rossetti.djvu/301

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A ROSE PLANT IN JERICHO.
273
The road to death is life, the gate of life is death,
We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane;
Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath,
The fall of a river that turneth not again.

Be the road short, and be the gate near,—
Shall a short road tire, a strait gate appal?
The loves that meet in Paradise shall cast out fear,
And Paradise hath room for you and me and all.


A ROSE PLANT IN JERICHO.
AT morn I plucked a rose and gave it Thee,
A rose of joy and happy love and peace,
  A rose with scarce a thorn:
  But in the chillness of a second morn
My rose bush drooped, and all its gay increase
Was but one thorn that wounded me.

I plucked the thorn and offered it to Thee
And for my thorn Thou gavest love and peace,
  Not joy this mortal morn:
  If Thou hast given much treasure for a thorn,
Wilt Thou not give me for my rose increase
Of gladness, and all sweets to me?

My thorny rose, my love and pain, to Thee
I offer; and I set my heart in peace,