This reminds me of a passage in Mrs. Barrett Browning's _Drama of Exile_
in which she makes Eve say--
--For was I not
At that last sunset seen in Paradise,
When all the westering clouds flashed out in throngs
Of sudden angel-faces, face by face,
All hushed and solemn, as a thought of God
Held them suspended,--was I not, that hour
The lady of the world, princess of life,
Mistress of feast and favour? _Could I touch
A Rose with my white hand, but it became
Redder at once?_
Another poet. (Mr. C. Cooke) tells us that a species of red rose with
all her blushing honors full upon her, taking pity on a very pale
maiden, changed complexions with the invalid and became herself as white
as snow.
Byron expressed a wish that all woman-kind had but one _rosy_ mouth,
that he might kiss all woman-kind at once. This, as some one has rightly
observed, is better than Caligula's wish that all mankind had but one
head that he might cut it off at a single blow.
Leigh Hunt has a pleasant line about the rose:
And what a red mouth hath the rose, the woman of the flowers!
In the Malay language the same word signifies _flowers_ and _women_.
Human beauty and the rose are ever suggesting images of each other to
the imagination of the poets. Shakespeare has a beautiful description of
the two little princes sleeping together in the Tower of London.
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