The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-07-20
LITERATURE
OF ROSES.
Almost Every Age Pays Its Trib-
ute to Their Beauty.
The Rose Hsd Its Dark Days in History
Drenched With B ood-Poets Have Sung
Its Praises-A Symbol of Passion.

queen of flowers, writes L. III. Todd in the
Detroit Free Press. From north to south
and from east to west, wherever warmth,
sunshine and cool breezes mingle, she
chooses her own domain.
Milton tells us of the rose in Eden.
Through the centuries China and Japan
have cultivated it with care born of love,
and to-day we reap the benefit in the choice
varieties of monthly, tea aud hybrid per-
petual roses.
The Caucasian mountains contribute the
cabbage rose SO intimately associated with
memories of many pleasant New England
homestead. From the south of France the
liquid fragrance of the same rose comes to
us in the form of rose water
In some parts of India large fields are in
one rose garden. The flowers are gathered
in the early morning, all sparkling and
shimmering with dew. We receive the
distilled essence of their beauty i'll the
precious altar Of roses, one article of mer-
chandise surely we'll fitted to come from
that land OF dreamy languor.
In Syria, Egypt and Palestine the wild
rose of Jericho does all i'll its power to
make the desert bloom. But Persia is
especially the land Of the rose. A day is
set apart and a festival held in its honor.
The love given to it elsewhere is lukeWarm
compared to the alteration there.
The wild rose of our own land makes
pink beauty by the gray roadsides, gener-
ously giving out its fragrance, but with
sharp thorns repelling alike friend and en-
envy. Its pampered sisters of the coDserya-
tory show their
LUXURIANT GRACEs
With more placid mein. Theirs is not
TON hi nv
destiny is 10 minister to the rich. They
are loves Offering They decorate the bath
room, preside over the marriage ceremony,
and brighten the shadows in the somber en-
virOnments of death. Thorns-they have
no need of them.
The rose is as old as literature. In the
mythology of Greece and Rome its legends
find place. Chaplets OF roses adorned its
deities. In the wonderful marriage song of
the Hebrew King the bride was likened to
the rose of Sharon. Among the ancient
Romans the rose was the emblem OF silence.
WreathS were hung in the apartments at
private meetings or entertainments, thus
intimating that whatever transpired was
not 10 be told in public. The phrase Sub
rosa," told under the rose, perpetuates the
idea to-day.
He laid the rose OF silence on her lips
And gayly went his way,
Where low the orient sun In splendor dips
Its fery1d, burning ray
She waited Ill the cottage by the wood,
The rose died Soon-perhaps 1t understood
Years passed. a weary man with furrowed cheeks
Kneels by u narrow mound;
No friend is there to ask for whom he seeks,
Or why that grief profound.
Her lovely eyes are closed i'll deaths eclipse,
His rose OF silence laid upon her lips.
In following out the literature there is
one thing especially noticeable. 1t is the
fact that, although the masters OF song,
from the earliest times, have tried their skill
in weaving graceful words in honor OF the
flower, there Is, after all, comparatively lit
tie variety in what has been written. All
have touched SO nearly the same strings
roses and fair woman's cheeks; roses
washed in dew; the blush of roses; the
rose as a queen. A single quotation. beau
tiful in itself, will show the usual current
of thought:
Crimson is its hue,
And on its breast the mornings crystal dew
Is changed to rubies.
IT Is NEARLY THE-sAME IDEA,
Whether expressed with the quaintness of a
Chaucer or Waller, The flowing muse of
Moore, the exquisite beauty of Keats or
poets who live through the ages strike the
chord which vibrateS in the heart of the
youth who spends his quick breath, as he
grasps his pen determined to bring out
something worthy of his Mary Jane, and
finally evolves
The rose is red and are you.
Poor roses, were they possessed of the
power of protest, how often would they
use it,
One of those who have best entered into
the heart of the rose and reads its most Sc
cret thoughts is Philip Bourke Marston, the
blind poet In his Garden Secrets" he de-
votes himself to the Interpretation of roses
and lilies, and very beautiful are his inter-
revelations. LII his blindness, sounds and
colors seemed to impart new meaning. The
following stanza is from The Rose and the
Nightingale -:
Said the singer to the roses,
" Love for You my song discloSes.
Hence the note OF grief IL borrows."
Quoth the Roses Love means pleasure"
Quoth The Singer: " Loves best measure
Is Its pure attendant Sorrows"
Moore's Last Rose OF Summer makes
sad melody in many hearts, and has done
more to keep his memory green than have
lis elaborate poems.
The rose is to-day the emblem of love and
beauty, rather than of scenery. In few
fine lines Scott gives yet another signitea-
ti0n to the dog rose:
Oh wilding rose, whom fancy thus endears,
bid your blossoms IN my bonnet wave.
Emblem OF hope and love through future years
A little blind girl found thought for the
roses which others had missed. Her words
are perhaps crude, but for the thoughts
sake they are worth repeating:
If this delicious, grateful flower,
Which blooms but for single hour,
Should to the sight as lovely be.
AS from its fragrance seems to me,
a sigh must then its color show,
For that's the sOftest Joy know,
And sure the rose is like the sigh,
Born just to soothe, and then to die.