There was none other in the quiet valley so happy as the
rose-tree,--none other so happy unless perchance it was the thrush who
made his home in the linden yonder. The thrush loved the rose-tree's
daughter, and he was happy in thinking that some day she would be his
bride. Now the rose-tree had many daughters, and each was beautiful;
but the rose whom the thrush loved was more beautiful than her sisters,
and all the wooers came wooing her until at last the fair creature's
head was turned, and the rose grew capricious and disdainful. Among
her many lovers were the south wind and the fairy Dewlove and the
little elf-prince Beambright and the hoptoad, whom all the rest called
Mr. Roughbrown. The hoptoad lived in the stone-wall several yards
away; but every morning and evening he made a journey to the rose-tree,
and there he would sit for hours gazing with tender longings at the
beautiful rose, and murmuring impassioned avowals. The rose's disdain
did not chill the hoptoad's ardor. "See what I have brought you, fair
rose," he would say. "A beautiful brown beetle with golden wings and
green eyes! Surely there is not in all the world a more delicious
morsel than a brown beetle! Or, if you but say the word, I will fetch
you a tender little fly, or a young gnat,--see, I am willing to undergo
all toils and dangers for your own sweet sake."
Poor Mr. Roughbrown! His wooing was very hopeless. And all the time
he courted the imperious rose, who should be peeping at him from her
home in the hedge but as plump and as sleek a little Miss Dormouse as
ever you saw, and her eyes were full of envy.
"If Mr. Roughbrown had any sense," she said to herself, "he would waste
no time on that vain and frivolous rose. He is far too good a catch
for _her_."
The south wind was forever sighing and sobbing about. He lives, you
know, very many miles from here. His home is beyond a great sea; in
the midst of a vast desert there is an oasis, and it is among the
palm-trees and the flowers of this oasis that the south wind abides.
When spring calls from the North, "O south wind, where are you? Come
hither, my sunny friend!" the south wind leaps from his couch in the
far-off oasis, and hastens whither the spring-time calls. As he speeds
across the sea the mermaids seek to tangle him in their tresses, and
the waves try to twine their white arms about him; but he shakes them
off and laughingly flies upon his way. Wheresoever he goes he is
beloved. With their soft, solemn music the pine-trees seek to detain
him; the flowers of earth lift up their voices and cry, "Abide with us,
dear spirit,"--but to all he answers: "The spring-time calls me in the
North, and I must hasten whither she calls." But when the south wind
came to the rose-tree he would go no farther; he loved the rose, and he
lingered about her with singing and sighing and protestations.
It was not until late in the evening that Dewlove and the elf-prince
appeared. Just as the moon rolled up in the horizon and poured a broad
streak of silver through the lake the three crickets went "Chirp-chirp,
chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp," and then out danced Dewlove and Beambright
from their hiding-places. The cunning little fairy lived under the
moss at the foot of the oak-tree; he was no bigger than a cambric
needle,--but he had two eyes, and in this respect he had quite the
advantage of the needle. As for the elf-prince, his home was in the
tiny, dark subterranean passage which the mole used to live in; he was
plump as a cupid, and his hair was long and curly, although if you
force me to it I must tell you that the elf-prince was really no larger
than your little finger,--so you will see that so far as physical
proportions were concerned Dewlove and Beambright were pretty well
matched. Merry, merry fellows they were, and I should certainly fail
most lamentably did I attempt to tell you how prettily they danced upon
the greensward of the meadowlands throughout the summer nights.
Sometimes the other fairies and elves joined them,--delicate little
lady fairies with gossamer wings, and chubby little lady elves clad in
filmy spider webs,--and they danced and danced and danced, while the
three crickets went "Chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp," all night
long. Now it was very strange--was it not?--that instead of loving one
of these delicate little lady fairies, or one of these chubby little
lady elves, both Dewlove and Beambright loved the rose. Yet, she was
indeed very beautiful.
The thrush did not pester the rose with his protestations of love. He
was not a particularly proud fellow, but he thought too much of the
rose to vex her with his pleadings. But all day long he would perch in
the thicket and sing his songs as only a thrush can sing to the
beautiful rose he loves. He sung, we will say, of the forests he had
explored, of the famous river he had once seen, of the dew which the
rose loved, of the storm-king that slew the old pine and made his cones
into a crown,--he sung of a thousand things which we might not
understand, but which pleased the rose because she understood them.
And one day the thrush swooped down from the linden upon a monstrous
devil's darning-needle that came spinning along and poised himself to
stab the beautiful rose. Yes, like lightning the thrush swooped down
on this murderous monster, and he bit him in two, and I am glad of it,
and so are you if your heart be not wholly callous.
"How comes it," said the rose-tree to the thrush that day,--"how comes
it that you do not woo my daughter? You have shown that you love her;
why not speak to her?"
"No, I will wait," answered the thrush. "She has many wooers, and each
wooes her in his own way. Let me show her by my devotion that I am
worthy of her, and then perchance she will listen kindly to me when I
speak to her."
The rose-tree thought very strange of this; in all her experience of
bringing out her fair daughters into society she had never before had
to deal with so curious a lover as the thrush. She made up her mind to
speak for him.
"My daughter," said she to the rose, "the thrush loves you; of all your
wooers he is the most constant and the most amiable. I pray that you
will hear kindly to his suit."
The rose laughed carelessly,--yes, merrily,--as if she heeded not the
heartache which her indifference might cause the honest thrush.
"Mother," said the rose, "these suitors are pestering me beyond all
endurance. How can I have any patience with the south wind, who is
forever importuning me with his sentimental sighs and melancholy
wheezing? And as for that old hoptoad, Mr. Roughbrown,--why, it is a
husband I want, not a father!"
"Prince Beambright pleases you, then?" asked the rose-tree.
"He is a merry, capering fellow," said the daughter, "and so is his
friend Dewlove; but I do not fancy either. And as for the thrush who
sends you to speak for him,--why, he is quite out of the question, I
assure you. The truth is, mother, that I am to fill a higher station
than that of bride to any of these simple rustic folk. Am I not more
beautiful than any of my companions, and have I not ambitions above all
others of my kind?"
"Whom have you seen that you talk so vain-gloriously?" cried the
rose-tree in alarm. "What flattery has instilled into you this fatal
poison?"
"Have you not seen the poet who comes this way every morning?" asked
the rose. "His face is noble, and he sings grandly to the pictures
Nature spreads before his eyes. I should be his bride. Some day he
will see me; he will bear me away upon his bosom; he will indite to me
a poem that shall live forever!"
These words the thrush heard, and his heart sank within him. If his
songs that day were not so blithe as usual it was because of the words
that the rose had spoken. Yet the thrush sang on, and his song was
full of his honest love.
It was the next morning that the poet came that way. He lived in the
city, but each day he stole away from the noise and crowd of the city
to commune with himself and with Nature in the quiet valley where
bloomed the rose-tree, where the thrush sung, and where dwelt the fays
and the elves of whom it has been spoken. The sun shone fiercely;
withal the quiet valley was cool, and the poet bared his brow to the
breeze that swept down the quiet valley from the lake over yonder.
"The south wind loves the rose! Aha, aha, foolish brother to love the
rose!"
This was what the breeze said, and the poet heard it. Then his eyes
fell upon the rose-tree and upon her blooming daughters.
"The hoptoad loves the rose! Foolish old Roughbrown to love the rose,
aha, aha!"
There was a malicious squeakiness in this utterance,--of course it came
from that envious Miss Dormouse, who was forever peeping out of her
habitation in the hedge.
"What a beautiful rose!" cried the poet, and leaping over the old
stone-wall he plucked the rose from the mother-tree,--yes, the poet
bore away this very rose who had hoped to be the poet's bride.
Then the rose-tree wept bitterly, and so did her other daughters; the
south wind wailed, and the old hoptoad gave three croaks so dolorous
that if you had heard them you would have said that his heart was truly
broken. All were sad,--all but the envious dormouse, who chuckled
maliciously, and said it was no more than they deserved.
The thrush saw the poet bearing the rose away, yet how could the
fluttering little creature hope to prevail against the cruel invader?
What could he do but twitter in anguish? So there are tragedies and
heartaches in lives that are not human.
As the poet returned to the city he wore the rose upon his breast. The
rose was happy, for the poet spoke to her now and then, and praised her
loveliness, and she saw that her beauty had given him an inspiration.
"The rose despised my brother! Aha, aha, foolish rose,--but she shall
wither!"
It was the breeze that spake; far away from the lake in the quiet
valley its voice was very low, but the rose heard and trembled.
"It's a lie," cried the rose. "I shall not die. The poet loves me,
and I shall live forever upon his bosom."
Yet a singular faintness--a faintness never felt before--came upon the
rose; she bent her head and sighed. The heat--that was all--was very
oppressive, and here at the entrance to the city the tumult aroused an
aggravating dust. The poet seemed suddenly to forget the rose. A
carriage was approaching, and from the carriage leaned a lady, who
beckoned to the poet. The lady was very fair, and the poet hastened to
answer her call. And as he hastened the rose fell from his bosom into
the hot highway, and the poet paid no heed. Ascending into the
carriage with the lady (I am sure she must have been a princess!) the
poet was whirled away, and there in the stifling dust lay the fainting
rose, all stained and dying.
The sparrows flew down and pecked at her inquisitively; the cruel
wagons crushed her beneath their iron wheels; careless feet buffeted
her hither and thither. She was no longer a beautiful rose; no, nor
even a reminiscence of one,--simply a colorless, scentless, ill-shapen
mass.
But all at once she heard a familiar voice, and then she saw familiar
eyes. The voice was tender and the eyes were kindly.
"O honest thrush," cried the rose, "is it you who have come to reproach
me for my folly?"
"No, no, dear rose," said the thrush, "how should I speak ill to you?
Come, rest your poor head upon my breast, and let me bear you home."
"Let me rather die here," sighed the rose, "for it was here that my
folly brought me. How could I go back with you whom I never so much as
smiled upon? And do they not hate and deride me in the valley? I
would rather die here in misery than there in shame!"
"Poor, broken flower, they love you," urged the thrush. "They grieve
for you; let me bear you back where the mother-tree will shade you, and
where the south wind will nurse you--for--for he loves you."
So the thrush bore back the withering rose to her home in the quiet
valley.
"So she has come back, has she?" sneered the dormouse. "Well, she has
impudence, if nothing else!"
"She was pretty once," said the old hoptoad; "but she lost her
opportunity when I made up my mind to go wooing a certain glossy damsel
in the hedge."
The rose-tree reached out her motherly arms to welcome her dying
daughter, and she said: "Rest here, dear one, and let me rock you to
repose."
It was evening in the quiet valley now. Where was the south wind that
he came not with his wooing? He had flown to the North, for that day
he had heard the spring-time's voice a-calling, and he went in answer
to its summons. Everything was still. "Chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp,
chirp-chirp," piped the three crickets, and forthwith the fairy boy and
the elf-prince danced from their habitations. Their little feet
tinkled over the clover and the daisies.
"Hush, little folk," cried the rose-tree. "Do not dance to-night,--the
rose is dying."
But they danced on. The rose did not hear them; she heard only the
voice of the thrush, who perched in the linden yonder, and, with a
breaking heart, sung to the dying flower.