THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
145 
The Rose distils a healing balm, the beating pulse of 
pain to calm; 
Preserves the cold inurned clay, and mocks the vestige 
of decay; 
And when at length in pale decline, its florid beauties 
fade and pine, 
Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath diffuses odour e’en 
in death! 
We are told that all Roses were once white, and 
Herrick accounts for some being changed into red :— 
’Tis said, as Cupid danced among the gods, he down 
the nectar flung; 
Which on the white Rose being shed, made it for ever 
after red. 
Moore, however, makes the origin of the red Rose 
coeval with the rising of Yenus (Aphrodite) from the 
foam of the sea, when he says:— 
Then, then, in strange eventful hour, the earth pro¬ 
duced an infant flower, 
Which sprung, with blushing tinctures drest, and wan¬ 
toned o’er its parent breast. 
The gods beheld this brilliant birth, and hailed the 
Rose, the boon of earth ! 
With nectar drops, a ruby tide, the sweetly orient buds 
they dyed, 
And bad them on the spangled thorn expand their 
bosoms to the morn. 
But in his “ Irish Melodies” he gives another state¬ 
ment :— 
K 
