

THE ROSE. ‘j 
Disclosed the nymph of azure glance, 
The nymph who shakes the martial lance! 
y 
And bade them bloom, the flowers divine 
Expand their bosoms to the morn.” 
The first Rose ever seen was said to have been 
given by the god of love to Harpocrates, the god 
of silence, to engage him not to divulge the 
amours of his mother Venus; and from hence 
the ancients made it a symbol of silence, and 
it became a custom to place a Rose above their 
heads, in their banqueting rooms, in order to 
banish restraint, as nothing there said would 
be repeated elsewhere; and from this practice 
originated the saying ‘‘sub rosa” (under the 
rose) when anything was to be kept secret. 
In the mythologiec ages it was sacred as the 
flower of young affection and endearment, and 
‘of mature love—the flower of Cupid and Venus, 


