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![[Picture: Border of women gathering rosebuds with poem]](https://www.fromoldbooks.org/EnglishIllustratedMagazine-1890/pages/677-arts-and-crafts-border/677-arts-and-crafts-border-q75-350x500.jpg "[Picture: Border of women gathering rosebuds with poem]")
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Border of women gathering rosebuds with poem more
poems, borders, women, briars, brambles, vines, bare feet, poetry
This wide border sits on the cusp between the Arts and Crafts of William Morris and the later Art Nouveau. There are six maidens in the border (virgins from the context, although i have no idea why that matters so much) in a dense thicket of roses that fill all available space very evenly. Grasping rose briars with bare hands and walking on them in bare feet seems unwise, but what to i know?
The poem is by Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time. Herrick was a Royalist in the Civil War, and lost his post of vicar of Dean Prior in Devon as a result, but in 1662 after the war and the Restoration of the King he was reinstated. He wrote over a thousand poems.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry,
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
R. Herrick.
p. 677)
