by Richard Henry Stoddard (1825 - 1903)

Roses and thorns
Language: English 
The young child Jesus had a garden,
 Full of roses, rare and red:
And thrice a day he watered them,
 To make a garland for his head.

When they were full-blown in the garden,
 He called the Jewish children there,
And each did pluck himself a rose,
 Until they stripped the garden bare.

"And now how will you make your garland?
 For not a rose your path adorns."
"But you forget," he answered them,
 "That you have left me still the thorns."

They took the thorns, and made a garland,
 And placed it on his shining head;
And where the roses should have shone
 Were little drops of blood instead!

Text Authorship:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

    [ None yet in the database ]

Settings in other languages, adaptations, or excerpts:

  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Hans Schmidt (1854 - 1923) ; composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
  • Also set in German (Deutsch), a translation by Adolf Strodtmann (1829 - 1879) ; composed by Margarete Voigt-Schweikert.
  • Also set in Russian (Русский), a translation by Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev (1825 - 1893) , "Легенда", first published 1877 ; composed by Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov, Vladimir Ivanovich Sokalsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2008-01-22
Line count: 16
Word count: 110