" O my garden full of roses, red as passion and as sweet." 



PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON. 



JUNE 



"HP HAT Spring should vanish with the Rose!" is the 

 * lament of the Persian poet, and we may even now be- 

 hold, with perhaps a like regret, the closing of the youthful 

 year's "sweet-scented manuscript." From the fields already 

 has died the one pale Spring tint of emerald; on the top of 

 the grown grass has appeared a swarty red, the Summer tint 

 of the earlier flowering grasses and blossoming sorrel. But 

 every bloom pales before that flower of flowers, which has its 

 birth in June, and soon throughout the land there will be 



" Roses, roses everywhere." 



Of this loved flower, how much has been, and still continues 

 to be, written. The antiquity of the rose dates back for so 

 long a time that the exact account of its origin is entirely 

 lost. In the Biblical writings it is not mentioned earlier than 

 the reign of Solomon ; but the allusion to it then made seems 

 to indicate that the flower had already been long known, for 

 the essence of roses was extensively used in Jerusalem and 

 Judaea during the reign of the luxurious king. In Egypt 

 the rose is depicted on a number of very early monuments, 

 believed to date from 3500 B.C., and in the tomb of an Egyp- 

 tian princess, a year ago, several hermetically-sealed phials were 

 found, which on being opened contained attar of roses. The 

 rose is one of those flowers which are taken by the people of 

 every land as too well known to need description, for it is 

 a singular fact that every continent, with the exception of 

 Australia, produces wild roses. Even the frozen regions of 



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