This section is from the book "Garden Flowers". Also available from Amazon: Garden Flowers (1857 ).
"Queen of flowers" and emblem of beauty! poets have exhausted their powers of language and imagination in singing thy praise. Nations have vied with each other in doing thee honour. Victors have found their highest reward in being permitted to sculpture thee upon their shields. Orators have flung the magic of their spell over listening thousands, and laboured to draw forth the richest treasures of mind and language, that they might win thee— and yet, thou an not proud! Thy graceful head and gentle buds blow modestly beside the palace of a king, and twine most lovingly around the trellised porch before the peasant's cottage door! Ah !—
'* Rose, thou art the sweetest flower That ever drank the amber shower."
The creation of the Rose is said to have been owing to the death of a favourite nymph of Flora, whose beauty of person was only surpassed by the purity of her heart and the chastity of her mind. Resolved to raise a plant from her precious remains, Flora begged the assistance of Venus, the Graces? and the deities who preside over gardens, in bringing about the transformation. The zephyrs cleared the atmosphere, that Apollo might throw his warm beams around the new floweret. Bacchus supplied rivers of nectar to nourish it; Vertumnus poured upon it his choicest perfumes; and Flora crowned it with a diadem prepared by the celestials expressly for the purpose. Little wonder, then, that such a rare production should be surpassingly beautiful and sweet. It is said that the roses were originally white, but were changed to red by the blood of Venus, when her feet were torn by their thorns, while attempting to defend Adonis, from the rage of Mars. Pretty, however, though these mythological fables "be, a truer and infinitely higher honour has been conferred on this flower, when, in sacred Scripture, our blessed Redeemer is called the " Rose of Sharon and yet again, when it is said the " desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." There are many different species of this flower, among which, few will refuse to admit, the blush and moss roses are the most beautiful. Grace shines forth in every spray and petal of these; modesty seems to clothe them as with a garment, while perfume floats continually around them. Well said the poet—
"Of all the flowers, Methinks a rose is best."
 
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