Part 2 — “HATH NOT THY ROSE A CANKER.”

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BY MRS. LOIS B. ADAMS.

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Pressed with the weight of morning dews,

Its slender stalk the rose was bending,

And red and white in changing hues

Upon its cheek were sweetly blending:

But underneath the leaflets bright,

By blushing beauty hid from sight,

Enamored with its fragrance rare,

The canker worm was feasting there.

O! thou who in thy youthful days

Ambition’s wreaths art proudly twining,

And fondly hoping worldly praise

Will cheer thine after years declining,

Beware, lest every tempting rose

That in Ambition’s pathway grows,

Conceal beneath its semblance fair

The lurking canker of despair.

And thou who in thine early morn

For sin the paths of truth art leaving,

Remember, though no pointed thorn

May pierce the garland thou art weaving,

Yet every bud whence flowrets bloom

Shall its own living sweets entomb;

For deep the canker worm of care

Is feasting on its vitals there.

Thou too, the beautiful and bright,

At Pleasure’s shrine devoutly kneeling,

Dost thou not see the fatal blight

Across thy roseate chaplet stealing?

Time hath not touched with fingers cold

Those glossy leaves of beauty’s mould,

And yet each bud and blossom gay

Is marked for slow but sure decay.

O! ye who sigh for flowers that bloom

In one eternal spring of gladness,

Where beauty finds no darkened tomb,

And joy hath never dreamed of sadness;

Elysian fields are yours to roam

Where groves of fadeless pleasures bloom

O! linger not where sorrow’s tears

May blight the cherished hopes of years.