Their lips were four red roses on a stalk
That in their summer beauty kissed each other.
William Browne (our Devonshire Pastoral Poet) has a _rosy_ description
of a kiss:--
To her Amyntas
Came and saluted; never man before
More blest, nor like this kiss hath been another
But when two dangling cherries kist each other;
Nor ever beauties, like, met at such closes,
But in the kisses of two damask roses.
Here is something in the same spirit from Crashaw.
So have I seen
Two silken sister-flowers consult and lay
Their bashful cheeks together; newly they
Peeped from their buds, showed like the garden's eyes
Scarce waked, like was the crimson of their joys,
Like were the tears they wept, so like that one
Seemed but the other's kind reflection.
Loudon says that there is a rose called the _York and Lancaster_ which
when, it comes true has one half of the flower red and the other half
white. It was named in commemoration of the two houses at the marriage
of Henry VII. of Lancaster with Elizabeth of York.
Anacreon devotes one of his longest and best odes to the laudation of
the Rose. Such innumerable translations have been made of it that it is
now too well known for quotation in this place. Thomas Moore in his
version of the ode gives in a foot-note the following translation of a
fragment of the Lesbian poetess.
Pages:
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212