34 ROSA LUCIDA. DWARF WILD ROSE. 



legends ascribing a fanciful origin to the Rose, and even 

 the matter-of-fact Turks declare that our flower was born 

 from the drops of perspiration which fell from the brow of 

 Mahomet. So impressed, indeed, were the ancient poets with 

 the superlative beauty of the Rose that they were not content 

 with giving it an almost divine origin, but even considered it 

 necessary to create Olympian messengers to watch over and 

 care for it : — 



" The sporting sylphs that course the air, 

 Unseen, on wings that twilight weaves, 

 Around the opening rose repair. 



And breathe sweet incense o'er its leaves." 



The several legends alluded to in the preceding paragraph 

 seem, however, to look upon the Rose as white, and various 

 other fancies are therefore called in to account for the Red 

 Rose. According to the Greek myth, it was the Red Rose 

 which sprang from the drops of blood that flowed from the 

 wounded feet of Venus, as she rushed through the woods in 

 an agony of despair, in search of the dead body of Adonis. 

 Thomas Moore, in his " Ballads," gives another version of the 

 birth of the Red Rose : — 



" They tell us that Love in his fairy bower 

 Had two blush roses of birth divine. 

 He sprinkled the one with a rainbow shower. 

 But bathed the other with mantling wine. 



Soon did the buds 



That drank of the floods 

 Distilled by the rainbow, decline and fade ; 



While those which the tide 



Of ruby had dyed 

 All blushed into beauty, like thee, sweet maid ! " 



The different kinds of roses also owe their origin to super- 

 natural agency, if the poets may be trusted. Thus Roscoe tells 

 us that, — 



