Poetry Revisited: The Wild White Rose by Ellen H. Willis

The Wild White Rose

(from I Left It All With Jesus and Other Poems: 1875)

Oh, that I might have my request, and that God would grant me the thing that I long for.—Job 6:8.

It was peeping through the brambles, that little wild white rose,

Where the hawthorn hedge was planted, my garden to enclose.

All beyond was fern and heather, on the breezy, open moor;

All within was sun and shelter, and the wealth of beauty's store.

But I did not heed the fragrance of flow'ret or of tree,

For my eyes were on that rosebud, and it grew too high for me.

In vain I strove to reach it through the tangled mass of green,

It only smiled and nodded behind its thorny screen.

Yet through that summer morning I lingered near the spot:

Oh, why do things seem sweeter if we possess them not?

My garden buds were blooming, but all that I could see

Was that little mocking wild rose, hanging just too high for me.

So in life's wider garden there are buds of promise, too,

Beyond our reach to gather, but not beyond our view;

And like the little charmer that tempted me astray,

They steal out half the brightness of many a summer's day.

Oh, hearts that fail with longing for some forbidden tree,

Look up and learn a lesson from my white rose and me.

'Tis wiser far to number the blessings at my feet,

Than ever to be sighing for just one bud more sweet.

My sunbeams and my shadows fall from a pierced Hand,

I can surely trust His wisdom since His heart I understand;

And maybe in the morning, when His blessed face I see,

He will tell me why my white rose grew just too high for me.

Ellen H. Willis (dates of birth and death unknown)

Victorian poet and hymn writer