_The Rose_
The Rose is no mushroom Queen. Her ancestry dates away back to the
Garden of Eden, and if Eve did not there gather a rosebud _boutonniere_
for Adam, it was because that primitive young man had not a buttonhole
"to his name."
The Rose of all flowers has been most praised by poets. From Isaiah's
day to our own they have celebrated its charms. In English history it
figured as the badge in the feuds between the houses of York and
Lancaster. Among the ancients the Rose was the symbol of secrecy, and
was hung up at entertainments as a token that nothing there said was to
be divulged--hence the well-known phrase "under the rose" (sub rosa).
The Romans at their voluptuous entertainments suspended roses in golden
network from the ceiling, which, throughout the feast, fell slowly upon
the reclining guest. All day, while the skillful Roman _chef_ busied
himself with his _ragouts_ of flamingo tongues, his _patés_ of locusts
and honey, and his roasts garnished with "chilled mushrooms," slaves, in
garden or forcing-house (as the season might be), wove fresh wreaths of
roses for the invited guests, which beautiful youths, with hair in
golden nets, waiting at the door of the _triclinium_, put upon their
heads, warning them, as the custom was, to pass the threshold "right
foot foremost." One sees, in fancy, the couches of these recumbent
feasting voluptuaries, with the roses dropping, dropping, all night
long, while the wine cup brimmed and "the hours went by on velvet feet."
The flower-loving Persians held annually a "Feast of Roses," which, we
are told, continued the whole time of their remaining in bloom, and
still another known as "The Scattering of the Roses." Groups of
beautiful children then went through the streets strewing these
delicious flowers.
Tom Moore tells us that "every part of the city was then as fragrant as
if a caravan of musk from Khoten had passed through it."
My own rose garden is not much to brag of, having been made up of such
miscellaneous rose bushes as were (without outlay) attainable. The
greater part of these had come over with us from the Cambridge garden.
Most plentiful of all are the Blush Roses. (Bushels of their scented
petals are yearly cured by me for Potpourri.) One or two bushes of it
still straggled on in the old-time border, and brought up to their
possibilities by transplantation and sufficient food, soon became good
to see, as also did the lone rose bush from the edge of the grass-plot,
dear to the Lady's heart as the gift of a dead friend, and, summer after
summer feeding the delusive hope of bloom, nursed in her optimistic
soul. Now there is a second bush of its kind, both bravely blooming.
I have never learned the name of the Lone Rose. It is so very double
that I have fancied it might be a descendant of the Persian "Gul sad
buk," the Rose of a hundred leaves, a particular species much prized in
the Vale of Cashmere. Be that as it may, it is a lovely flower. Its
petals are legion, and its buds so rounded and compact as to have the
appearance of big pink "alleys." More exquisite still is a single rose
rescued from choking in a snarl of waxberry bushes.
It has since taken to itself a big slice of the rose garden, and,
enlarged by good living to twice its ancient size, its daintily shaded
flowers, for decorative use, are simply perfection. Unhappily their
bloom is evanescent. They seldom outlast in water a day and a night.
Among the Cambridge roses was a little half-wild pink darling "unknown
to fame." I found it at Farm Hill (Weymouth Town), where it ran riot
among the vegetables in a carelessly ordered garden patch, and
straggling through the picket fence, held its own among the
seldom-trodden wayside weeds and grasses. Its color is bright pink, and
it has the size and habit of the Scotch Rose, and is in full bloom when
other roses are but buds.
Another early pink rose which we found in the Cambridge garden is the
next earliest. It flowers about the 9th of June. I have no clue to its
name. It must have been one of the Botanic Garden roses. Its blossom is
exquisite in form, but not over fragrant. In habit it is straggling,
almost a climber, and does not take kindly to pruning. Then there are
the well-known Damask Roses, which must have come long, long ago from
the Harvard collection. In their own habitat the Damasks are cultivated
for their mercantile value, being, as we are told, the special roses
from which the costly foreign Attar is obtained. I had thought that the
Damask Rose had in the family three colors, but Bacon sets me right. He
says: "It is large, _pink_, hardy, and has not been known in England (at
the time of his writing) above one hundred years." It is by no means a
distinguished-looking rose, but seems to have conserved within its sweet
heart the perfume of a thousand summers.
A Yellow Scotch Rose takes kindly to my garden. A rose bought of a
Cambridge florist for the beloved daughter, gone home to God (whose
latest care it was), and now known as "Mary's Rose," bore well its
second uprooting. It has come to be a tall bush, bearing abundant
clusters of deep pink bloom, and all summer putting forth crisp shoots,
with leaves red as a sunset cloud, and lovely as flowers for decorative
uses.
A Sweetbriar--rifled years ago from the wildwood--after a fourth
transplanting knew three summers of thrifty growth in its latest home,
and then gave up, without notice, the experiment of being cultivated.
Not so a sturdy wilding brought all the way from Maine, as a dear
souvenir of happy seaside "days that are no more." It still
accommodates itself to Massachusetts soil and bears with fortitude the
exigencies of Massachusetts "culchure."
Last and best is my heart's joy--the white rose of my childhood.
It has never revealed to me the secret of its botanic name; I simply
know it as the "White Rose."
Fifty years ago its sister roses might have been found in many
dooryards--side by side with ragged pink cinnamon roses--thriving
untended, loaded with bloom, and covering the low fronts of roadside
farm-houses. Its flowers are lovely in form, with creamy petals, and
just the faint suspicion of a blush at their heart.
Its odor is all its own--a strong, chaste, wholesome scent, yet sweet
withal as the "honey of Hymettus."
All my life long it had been the desire of my heart to have a bush of
this old-time white rose in my _very own_ garden. Time after time I had
bought and planted it, but to watch it die; at last, when half a century
of my life had gone, it surprised me in the Cambridge garden! The bush
had evidently seen its best days, and when we moved to The Lilacs
opinions varied as to the wisdom of transplanting so old a settler. We
could but try, and so we tried and succeeded. The big scraggly bush is
(ten years after) bravely holding its own, and summer after summer
scantily bearing the same dear old roses. A second bush, propagated
from the parent root, has been put in our Mt. Auburn burying lot. It is
one of my idle fancies to have a white rose tree near my grave. Surely
when "petals of its blown roses" fall upon the grass above my head
"My heart will hear them and beat
Tho' lain for a century dead."
And now it is on my conscience that, in this authentic history, I have
not yet confessed my disgraceful failure with Perpetual Roses. In the
little bed, started ten years ago, but six decadent specimens now "hold
the fort."
I cannot state whether this shameful fact is the result of unfitness of
soil, mistaken pruning, insufficient winter protection, or simply the
malice of opposing Fate.
Innumerable "Rose-grower's Guides" have been consulted in regard to
loam, manure, and phosphates since I made this venture. Naturally, then,
the soil cannot be greatly at fault, and as to "winter protection" I
have, as directed, stacked the bushes in straw, covered the ground with
good manure, topped by a covering of leaves held in place by strips of
board. This failing, I have tried omitting the stacking, and using
manure, leaves, and boards, and finally have fallen back on manure and
leaves as a permanent "winter arrangement." In regard to pruning I have
consulted many authorities, but "who shall decide when doctors
disagree?"
My Perpetuals have been pruned in early spring, at mid-summer, and in
autumn--have been pruned a little and pruned a good deal, and with the
same dreary result, and my ultimatum is--_prune not at all_.
This final decision is in direct opposition to the convictions of "The
Man with the Hoe," who, once the pruning shears are in his hand, is
prone to emulate the insatiate old fellow of the New England Primer,
commended to our childish attention by this awesome couplet:
"Time cuts down all,
Both great and small."
This propensity to "trim things up" is the one flaw in the character of
this useful person. On such days as he takes up his shears I follow
anxiously in his wake, and with mild remonstrance stay his ruthless
hand.
So many Perpetuals have, first and last, lived out their little day in
my garden that my poor brain refuses the task of recalling their names.
Of the six bushes that still survive, two are Jacques, one an unreliable
pink rose (name forgotten), which blooms when "so dispoged," usually
drops its shrunken buds right and left, and, if quite convenient,
perfects annually two or three lovely flowers of delicate pink and of
marvelous size.
Next in order are the two cherished white roses, the gift of a kind
neighbor, that, regardless of early frosts, bear their pretty clusters
up to the very last days of October. Lastly comes the tall thrifty bush
procured years ago along with five sister bushes in the prize collection
of a florist; the latter all died young. I cannot recall the name of the
survivor, nor tell its color, for never once has it put forth bud or
bloom. Hope, however, dies hard in the plant-lover's breast. Like the
scriptural proprietor of the barren fig tree I still "dig about and
dung" this incorrigible rose.
Last year I sowed Single Dahlias in the bare spaces in this untoward
rose bed, and when these and the two obliging white roses blossomed
together I looked with complacency upon the effect and thanked Heaven
that matters were no worse. Meantime my flower-loving neighbor, summer
after summer, is bringing Perpetual Roses into perfect bloom--red roses,
pink roses, and roses of waxy whiteness--large, fragrant, and altogether
exquisite! To walk among his Tea Roses and sniff the scented air is like
going out to "afternoon tea." The fine foliage of his bushes (in itself
only less beautiful than their bloom) is the result of neither
hellebore, insect powder, nor emulsion, but is simply kept immaculate
with pure cold water. At early morning the bushes are vigorously
showered. At nightfall the ever-ready hose is again in play. Under this
heroic treatment the red spider gives up the fight and hostile insects
of every variety hide their diminished heads. For the rest I think this
marvelous success (which extends to every plant, shrub, and tree in his
garden) is mainly due to a wise understanding of their individual needs,
a fond love of them all, and a never-tiring patience. I have never
cared for the Standard Roses. Like boys walking on stilts their
performance is odd, but unbecoming.
From Isaiah's day to our own the Rose has been well praised by poets.
Here are some of the many stanzas, lines, and couplets that celebrate
this beautiful Queen:
"The desert shall blossom as the rose."
--_Isaiah._
Before the Hebrew poet sung Eve was thus pictured in paradise:
"Veiled in a cloud of fragrance where she stood
Half-spied, so thick the roses blushing round
About her glowed."
--_Milton._
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may;
Old Time is still a-flying,
And that same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow may be dying."
--_Herrick._
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
"But earthlier happy is the rose distilled
Than that which, withering on the virgin stem,
Grows, lives, and dies, in single blessedness."
--_Shakespeare._
"Die of a rose in aromatic pain."
--_Pope._
"The budding rose above the rose full blown."
--_Wordsworth._
"The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew."
--_Scott._
"As though a rose should shut and be a bud again."
--_Keats._
"You may place a hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs and flowers
before the nightingale, yet he wishes not in his constant heart for
more than the sweet breath of his beloved rose."
--_Janie._
There is an Eastern legend telling that when Paradise was fading from
earth an angel plucked and saved a single rose, which from that day has
transmitted to its kind an immortal fragrance.
No other flower has so many intimate relations to our humanity. It goes
to the altar with the bride--to the tomb with the dead. Young happy
hearts rejoice at its coming, and aged pulses ("slowed down" by Time's
relentless hand) quicken anew with memories of long-past Junes. In the
primal garden Eve herself must have given it its lovely, fitting name,
and Juliet was wrong--by no "other" would it "smell as sweet."