The Tangled Skein

Try we life-long, we can never

Straighten out life's tangled skein,

Why should we, in vain endeavour,

Guess and guess and guess again?

Life's a pudding full of plums

Care's a canker that benumbs.

Wherefore waste our elocution

On impossible solution?

Life's a pleasant institution,

Let us take it as it comes!

Set aside the dull enigma,

We shall guess it all too soon;

Failure brings no kind of stigma -

Dance we to another tune!

String the lyre and fill the cup,

Lest on sorrow we should sup;

Hop and skip to Fancy's fiddle,

Hands across and down the middle -

Life's perhaps the only riddle

That we shrink from giving up!

William Schwenck Gilbert

I recently created this crown for a client based on the poem The Tangled Skein by William Schwenck Gilbert. The crown is to be worn on special family occasions and celebrations. I had such a good time making a piece knowing that it would become a treasured family heirloom.

Thanks, Tom!