Romance of the Rose

“ The beauty and perfume of the Rose are celebrated in those sweet sonnets of Shakspeare, so familiar to all lovers of true and graceful poetry.
Oh! how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses;
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When Summer's breath their masked buds discloses.
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade ”

“ Romance of the Rose, a poetical allegory, begun by Guillaume di Lorris in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and continued by Jean de Meung in the former half of the fourteenth century. The poet dreams that Dame Idleness conducts him to the palace of Pleasure, where he meets Love, whose attendant maidens are Sweet-looks, Courtesy, Youth, Joy, and Competence, by whom he is conducted to a bed of roses. He singles out one, when an arrow from Love’s bow stretches him fainting on the ground, and he is carried off. ”

“ Gather therefore the rose whilest yet is prime,
For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre:
Gather the rose of love whilest yet is time,
Whilest loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime."
Well does the excelling beauty and exquisite perfume of this praised flower merit our admiration. We may say with the Poets, Beaumont and Fletcher—
Nature picked several flowers from her choice banks,
And bound them up in thee—sending thee forth
A posy for the bosom of a queen. ”

“ Roses, roses! An interminable chain of these royal blossoms, red and white, wreathed by the radiant fingers of small rainbow-winged creatures as airy as moonlight mist, as delicate as thistledown! They cluster round me with smiling faces and eager eyes; they place the end of their rose-garland in my hand, and whisper, "FOLLOW!" ”

“ The Lily and the Rose, so long unrivalled in the annals of Poesy, are no more the absolute monopolists they have been, for in these days a considerable share of metrical celebrity is awarded to the sentimental favourite of modern Poetasters, the Forget-me-not; which, delicate, and dear, and beautiful as it is, the indiscriminate eulogy and fashionable preeminence, now given to it, serve to render less pure and poetical in the eyes of the true votaries of Nature and Romance than many a yet unpraised flower. ”

“ A few words only, for our limits press, on the natural science taught in the 'Romance of the Rose.' The poet, having got rid of this indignation and wrath that lay at his soul anent the mendicant friars, and the vices of women, wishes now, it seems, to sit down for a quiet and comfortable disquisition on universal knowledge, including alchemy, in which he is a firm believer ”

“ The Roman de la rose is fancy, and the Arthurian romances are fiction. In the one or the other, imagination may take the place of passion, and the contents of the poem or romance afford a type and presentation of the theory of love. ”

“ Nay, force thy bud to blow, their tyrant breath
Anticipating life, to hasten death.
The cheek of Beauty has ever been the allotted throne of this floral queen, and so it is, and will be; but alas! in many a fair face, the vermeil blush has given place to a pallid hue. 'Tis in the morning sunshine, and the hilly breeze, that the true-tinted rose is worn ”

“ Over the whole expanse of the silent hill nothing was heard but the song of the nightingale. Night was merely the sobbing of the nightingale.
Then in the groves dawn appeared, all rose-red because it was naked amid the choirs of birds who still sang from a full throat for their wings were heavy with love and morning dew. The quails in the grain were not yet calling. The tom-tits with their black heads made a noise in the thicket of fig-trees like the sound of pebbles moved by water. A wood-pecker rent the azure with its cry, and then flew toward the old, white-flowered apple-trees. ”

“ Voted the Rose the queen of flowers;
But so, as that herself should be
The maide of honour unto thee.
In "The Gentleman of Venice," by Shirley (a dramatic writer of great merit but small popularity) , is this very lively and poetic dialogue between a fair Lady and a young Gardener:—
Signior Georgio expecting that in gathering the Rose the Lady would wound her hand, and thus show that pain often succeeds to pleasure.
Although not entirely in praise of the Rose, the following sonnet of Spencer is so good and graceful that I shall quote it here:—
Sweet is the Rose, but grows upon a Brere ”

“ Her beauty, her grace, her tenderness, now that they are utterly beyond reach, are tenfold enticing; and in that other sphere to which, in his night revery, they seem translated, the joyous face of Rose, like that of an attendant angel, looks down regretfully, full of a capacity for love to which he must be a stranger. ”

“ Another legend is, that Venus, hastening to protect Adonis, trod on the thorns of the rose, and, her foot being wounded, a few drops of her celestial blood served to make the flowers blush ever after for their cruelty to their patron divinity. Some Poets suppose the Rose to have sprung first, on this occasion, from the tears of Venus. Sir Walter Raleigh plaintively introduces this tradition in his poem of "the Shepherd to the Flowers." ”

“ Art thou heir to roses dead— Roses that their petals shed In the winds of long ago? Who bequeathed to thee the glow Of thy perfect, radiant heart? What proud queen of fire and snow Lived to make thee what thou art?
Who gave thee thy nameless grace And the beauty of thy face, Touched thy lips with fragrant wine, Pledging thee in cups divine? On some long-forgotten day, When earth kept glad holiday, One bright rose was born, I think, Dewy, sweet, and soft and pink— Born, more blest than others are, To be thy progenitor! ”

“ All was joy and jubilation over a career that had even now surpassed the records of antique heroism, that blended the romance of oriental prowess with the beneficent toils of the legislator, and prospered alike in war and peace.
And yet black care cast one shadow over that jubilant festival. There was a void in the First Consul's life such as saddened but few of the millions of peasants who looked up to him as their saviour. His wife had borne him no heir: and there seemed no prospect that a child of his own would ever succeed to his glorious heritage. ”

“ I quite agree with the eastern sage who said, 'the rose was made from what was left of woman at the creation.' I do not conceive that their excellence is much impaired by this neglect of mental cultivation. ”

“ The rose is such a lady—
So stately, fresh, and sweet;
It joys to hold her image—
The rain pool at her feet.
They look such common lasses,
Those red pinks in a line;
The rose is such a lady—
So dignified and fine. ”

“ So novel, so new, exquisitely delicious, so transporting, so heavenly were the sensations, ecstatic were the joys we both felt that we twined and writhed in each other's arms like serpents, while Rose exclaimed,-
"Oh God! I die! Oh heaven! What joy, what pleasure. ”

“ Not such thy spells o'er those that hail'd thee first
In the clear light of Eden's golden day;
There thy rich leaves to crimson glory burst,
Link'd with no dim remembrance of decay.
Rose! for the banquet gathered, and the bier;
Rose! coloured now by human hope or pain;
Surely where death is not—nor change, nor fear,
Yet may we meet thee, Joy's own Flower, again! ”

“ Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odors made.
For twenty-seven centuries—and more—the rose has been considered queen of flowers. Her perfume, her color, her elegance, and her mystic fascination have won all hearts. Shakespeare says: "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." In one sense that is true; but we would not be willing to try another title, for the very word rose is a beautiful one and conjures up a particular and very special vision of sweetness and beauty. ”

“ She knows a joy in which there is no fatigue, a love in which there is no threat to her virginity. The phantom rose disappears. She wakes. The real rose is at her feet where the dream rose had lain for a moment. ”

“ Is it any marvel now that round the visible object should associate tributary feelings of pleasure? How many pleasing and tender sentiments gather round the rose! Yet the rose is beautiful in itself. It was beautiful to the child by its colour, its texture, its softly-shaded leaf, and the contrast between the flower and the foliage. Love, and poetry, and the tender regrets of advanced life, have contributed a second dower of beauty. The rose is more to the youth and to the old man than it was to the child; but still to the last they both feel the pleasure of the child. ”

“ Her eyes, very far apart and set in black lashes, were of a deep soft blue—the blue of wild hyacinths after rain. By her eyes, and by an old-world charm of personality which she exhaled like a perfume, it was easy to discern that she embodied the feminine ideal of the ages. To look at her was to think inevitably of love. For that end, obedient to the powers of Life, the centuries had formed and coloured her, as they had formed and coloured the wild rose with its whorl of delicate petals. ”

“ They are various, I fancy—I mean the honest causes of interest that lead on to love. I have always thought that Rose would be captured by character. In our every-day life it lacks chance of exhibition, but here, it is, or has been, different. ”

“ The first, by Samuel Daniel (1562) , concludes (as all proper sonnets should do) with what the lady addressed would gladly believe the cream and object of the effusion, but the preceding lines describing the Rose, and the havoc which "swift speedy time" makes in youthful loveliness, are exceedingly touching and graceful.
Look, Delia, how w' esteem the half-blown rose,
⁠The image of thy blush and Summer's honour,
Whilst yet her tender bud doth undisclsoe
⁠That full of beauty time bestows upon her ”

“ As he bends to speak she turns her head, with a deepening flush; the movement wafts to him the subtle fragrance of a white rose worn in her brown hair, and the words she longs to hear die unspoken on his lips. What is there in the fragrance of a flower that can pierce one deeper than a sword-thrust with the sweet-bitterness of memory? What kinship does it bear to the roses that blossomed in other days, in other hands that we have loved? ”

“ Do you think that our Clovelly roses have come to be of themselves? Do you think that the actual hurt of [Pg 289] their beauty—the restless, nameless quest that comes spurring to our hearts from their silent leaning over the rim of a vase—is nothing more than a product of soil and sun? Has their great giving to human romances been dead as moonlight? Have roses taken nothing in return?... I would not insist before the world that the form and fragrance and texture of the rose has come to be from the magnetisms of lovers, but we of the Chapel may think as we will. That liberty is our first law. ”

“ The mistress passed on to the queen of the garden, La Rosiere, fragrant beyond all other roses, its reflexed, claret-coloured petals soft and velvety, its leaves—when did a rose’s greenery fail to be its perfect complement?—tinged underneath with a faint blush of its own deep colour. ”

“ Under roses slept the maiden Rosa, And a rose fell down and waken'd Rosa; To the flower-rose, said the maiden Rosa— "Rose of mine! O fall, not on the maiden, I am in no tune of soul to love thee, For a heavy grief o'erwhelms my spirit; Youth would have me—but old age hath won me. An old bridegroom is a worthless maple; When the wind is up it faints and trembles; When the rain descends, decay decays it: But a young bride, is a roselet budding; When the wind is up, its fair leaves open, When the rain descends, it shines in beauty,— When the sun comes forth, it smiles and glories." ”

“ Who, in cultivating roses, has not spiritually felt the better for it? The subtlety of its fragrance, the grace of its form, the perfect harmony of its tones appeal to the imagination like music to the soul. In the whole range of nature's variety and completeness nothing so satisfies the idea of perfection as the rose. ”

“ What blossoms could bloom on the breast of the youthful beauty so typical of the infinity of hope, and sweet thoughts that lie folded up in her own heart, as fair young rose buds? What wreath could so lovingly encircle the head of the bride, as that of white roses, full of purity and grace? And, last of all, what blossoms, so expressive of human affections, could we find at the bier, to take the place of the rose? ”

“ No woman lives with power to burst My passion's bonds, and set me free; For Rose is last where Rose was first, And only Rose is fair to me. The faintest memory of her face, The wilful face that hurt me so, Is followed by a fiery trace That Rose Lorraine must never know. ”

“ The singer steps before her flower-bedecked window, and sings her beauties in the name of her lover. He compares her size to that of a pear tree, her lips to two blushing rose-buds, and her womanly form to that of a dove. With assumed harshness the lady asks her lover: Who are you, and what do you want? He answers with ardent confidence: "Thy love I do adore. The stars live in the harmony of love, and why should not we, too, love each other?" Then the proud beauty gives herself away: she takes her flower-wreath from her hair and throws it down to her lover, promising to be his forever. ”

“ CHORUS OF BRIDESMAIDS. Fair is Rose as bright May-day; Soft is Rose as the warm west-wind; Sweet is Rose as the new-mown hay— Rose is queen of maiden-kind! Rose, all glowing With virgin blushes, say— Is anybody going To marry you to-day? SOLO—ZORAH. Every day, as the days roll on, Bridesmaids' garb we gaily don, Sure that a maid so fairly famed Can't long remain unclaimed. Hour by hour and day by day, Several months have passed away, Though she's the fairest flower that blows, No one has married Rose! ”