O gather me the rose

After the exhaustion of the past few weeks my energy is slowly returning, but it’s a very hit and miss affair and I don’t know from one day to the next when I get out of bed whether it will be a good day full of achievement, or one one of those days when everything seems a huge effort. Unfortunately today was one of the latter, but I’m encouraged that they are becoming less frequent, and I’m grateful that Smithers looks after me so well when I’m feeling exhausted.

I ran out of inspiration for a blip today so, rather than desperately try to shoot something original, I’m blipping my Pretty Lady roses again because I love them so much. And I’ve also allowed myself to add a poem, which I haven’t done for a while. It’s by W. E. Henley, who is probably best known for his poem ‘Invictus’. This one, however, rather aptly illustrates my photo, especially as I have a myrtle bush a few feet away from this Pretty Lady rose.


O gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it.

For with the dream foregone, foregone,
The deed foreborn forever,
The worm Regret will canker on,
And time will turn him never.

So were it well to love, my love,
And cheat of any laughter
The fate beneath us, and above,
The dark before and after.

The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
The sunshine and the swallow,
The dream that comes, the wish that goes
The memories that follow!

William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)