The Angel of the Flowers one day,
Beneath a rose tree sleeping lay,
The spirit to whom charge is given
To bathe young buds in dews of heaven,
Awaking from his light repose
The Angel whispered to the Rose
"O fondest object of my care
Still fairest found where all is fair,
For the sweet shade thou givest to me
Ask what thou wilt 'tis granted thee"
"Then" said the Rose, "with deepened glow
On me another grace bestow."
The spirit paused in silent thought
What grace was there the flower had not?
'Twas but a moment--o'er the rose
A veil of moss the Angel throws,
And robed in Nature's simple weed,
Could there a flower that rose exceed?
Madame de Genlis tells us that during her first visit to England she saw
a moss-rose for the first time in her life, and that when she took it
back to Paris it gave great delight to her fellow-citizens, who said it
was the first that had ever been seen in that city. Madame de Latour
says that Madame de Genlis was mistaken, for the moss-rose came
originally from Provence and had been known to the French for ages.
The French are said to have cultivated the Rose with extraordinary care
and success. It was the favorite flower of the Empress Josephine, who
caused her own name to be traced in the parterres at Malmaison with a
plantation of the rarest roses. In the royal rosary at Versailles there
are standards eighteen feet high grafted with twenty different varieties
of the rose.
With the Romans it was no metaphor but an allusion to a literal fact
when they talked of sleeping upon beds of roses. Cicero in his third
oration against Verres, when charging the proconsul with luxurious
habits, stated that he had made the tour of Sicily seated upon roses.
And Seneca says, of course jestingly, that a Sybarite of the name of
Smyrndiride was unable to sleep if one of the rose-petals on his bed
happened to be curled! At a feast which Cleopatra gave to Marc Antony
the floor of the hall was covered with fresh roses to the depth of
eighteen inches. At a fete given by Nero at Baiae the sum of four
millions of sesterces or about 20,000_l_. was incurred for roses. The
Natives of India are fond of the rose, and are lavish in their
expenditure at great festivals, but I suppose that no millionaire
amongst them ever spent such an amount of money as this upon flowers
alone.[076]
I shall close the poetical quotations on the Rose with one of
Shakespeare's sonnets.
O how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on such thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses;
But for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade;
Die to themselves. Sweet Roses do not so;
Of then sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade, my verse distils your truth.
There are many hundred acres of rose trees at Ghazeepore which are
cultivated for distillation, and making "attar." There are large fields
of roses in England also, for the manufacture of rose-water.
There is a story about the origin of attar of Roses. The Princess
Nourmahal caused a large tank, on which she used to be rowed about with
the great Mogul, to be filled with rose-water. The heat of the sun
separating the water from the essential oil of the rose, the latter was
observed to be floating on the surface. The discovery was immediately
turned to good account. At Ghazeepoor, the _essence_, _atta_ or _uttar_
or _otto_, or whatever it should be called, is obtained with great
simplicity and ease. After the rose water is prepared it is put into
large open vessels which are left out at night. Early in the morning the
oil that floats upon the surface is skimmed off, or sucked up with fine
dry cotton wool, put into bottles, and carefully sealed. Bishop Heber
says that to produce one rupee's weight of atta 200,000 well grown roses
are required, and that a rupee's weight sells from 80 to 100 rupees. The
atta sold in Calcutta is commonly adulterated with the oil of sandal
wood.