O Sickened Rose.

O sickened Rose, thou must have wept

when thorn and prick aside were swept.
Mankind grew not, by year or day,
and swept its own thorn far away.

In sanitising golden shower,
relentless in consumptive power;
in gold and marble, this was hewed:
self-image most untrue and skewed.

To live immortal, endless lives,
to some would seem the grandest prize.
But Midas, weighed down by his gold,
knew this was folly as of old.

To encase the mind in perfect steel
would be most fine, these people feel!
So wonder, Rose, wonder how we
by our own thorn can't prick-ed be.