The Nightingale And The Rose Poem by Mike Shanahan

The song, it echoed sweetly
This melody of purity so fine
To cause this bud to life
To cause this rose to form

The price to pay… the thorn
This precious price to pay with life
Pressed against the heart of purity
So pure this gentle heart

For in the name of love was formed
This rose so red, so rare
And with this blood so red
This sad song so sweet this night so long.

Until the thorn so sharp did pierce
This gentle feathered heart
And spilled the blood to form
This red rose, so rare.

And as her song of love grew faint
And as her life it spilled unto the rose
The dawn approached to quicken this endeavour
Lest this rose of love be less than perfect formed

As wilder grew her song so sweet of love
As bitter grew the pain as life it ebbed
So slowly born this death that does not die
So one heart grew the other passed away.

Borne on the wind this melody of song
This song so sweet to cause to life
This rose of blood, of love, of pain and tears
And yet so easily cast into a gutter.