The Poetry of the Rose. 35 



stem ! " " Ah ! madam," he replied, " how gracious and benevolent of the Creator 

 to furnish so rough a plant with so lovely and sweet a flower ! " 

 Russia also furnishes from the poet Kostrov 



THE VOW. 



The Rose is my favourite flower, 

 On its tablets of crimson I s^vore 

 That up to my last living hour 

 I never would think of thee more. 



I scarcely the record had made, 

 Ere Zephyr in frolicsome play, 

 On his light airy pinions conveyed 

 Both tablet and promise away. 



Bowring's " Rtissian Anthology." 



Let us now turn to consider the poetry of our own land. 



Chaucer, our first great English author, alludes in his early pieces to the poetical 

 worship of the Rose and the Daisy, and others of our early poets were not unmindful 

 of its charms. Harrington speaks of " cheeks that shamed the Rose ; " Marlowe of 

 " beds of Roses," &c. 



In thilk mirror saw I tho 



Among a thousand things mo, 



A roser (rose-bush) charged full of Rosis, 



That with an hedge about enclosis, 



Tho had I such lust and enuie 



That for Paris ne for Pauie 



Nold I haue left to gone and see 



There greatest hepe of Rosis be. 



Whan I was with that rage hent 



That caught hath many a man and shent, 



Toward the roser gan I go, 



And when I was not ferre therefro 



The sauer of the Roses swote 



Me smote right to the heart rote, 



As I had all enbaumed be. 



Chaucer. 



Spenser, whose genius sheds a brilliancy over the age in which he lived, makes 

 frequent mention of it. Everyone is familiar with his fable of the Oak and the 

 Briar, contained in the " Shepherd's Calendar." Of the latter he says 



It was embellished with blossoms fair, 

 And thereto aye wonted to repair 

 The shepherd's daughters to gather flowers 

 To paint their girlands with his colours. 



The poet makes the "bragging Brere" vaunt his own praises to the disparage- 

 ment of his neighbour the " goodly Oak." 



Seest how fresh my flowers been spread, 

 Dyed in lily white and crimson red ! 



The mouldy moss which thee accloyetli, 

 My cinnamon smell too much annoyeth. 



"Shepherd's Calendar," Eclogue 2. 



