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Home  »  A Library of American Literature  »  Flower and Thorn

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Flower and Thorn

By Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907)

[Born in Portsmouth, N. H., 1836. Died in Boston, Mass., 1907. The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 1858–85).—Household Edition. 1885.]

TAKE them and keep them,

Silvery thorn and flower,

Plucked just at random

In the rosy weather—

Snowdrops and pansies,

Sprigs of wayside heather,

And five-leaved wild-rose

Dead within an hour.

Take them and keep them:

Who can tell? some day, dear,

(Though they be withered,

Flower and thorn and blossom,)

Held for an instant

Up against thy bosom,

They might make December

Seem to thee like May, dear!