Page:Main Street and other poems, Kilmer, 1917.djvu/55

MAIN STREET AND OTHER POEMS ROSES

(For Katherine Brègy)

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. [ 49 ]