75 
Come then, fair monitress, and let me borrow 
Hints which may serve for life’s aye-changing hour. 
Is grief my lot? tell how unmix’d His sorrow, 
Who laid aside for us his crown, and wore, 
Not, as doth man, alternate thorn and rose, 
But thorns, thorns only, on His bleeding brows. 
And if, when pleasures smile, thou e’er shouldst find me 
With trusting fondness cling too much to them, 
Then, gentle teacher, once again remind me, 
By the sharp thorns which fence thy graceful stem, 
That heaven alone unchanging pleasure knows, 
Skies without cloud, “ and without thorn the rose.” 
