When the Dew Mother had completed her task she was so weary that she felt she must rest before leaving the earth. It happened that she was in an old-fashioned garden where she found a bed of velvet moss. Here she lay down and slept until sunrise. When she opened her eyes she saw bending over her a beautiful rose bush.
"My queen of flowers, thou hast watched me through the night, and sheltered me with tender care from the sun's first rays," said the Dew Mother. "But what new gift can I add to the beauty of the rose whose perfume is the richest I can bestow; whose colour is like the first flush of the morning sky?"
Very humbly the queen of flowers replied, "Grant me a gift of the green moss, which made your resting place under my branches."
So the Dew Mother gladly added the gift of delicate soft moss to the manifold beauties of the rose, and to-day in many an old-fashioned garden one finds the exquisite moss rose.
A YELLOW PANSY
To the wall of the old green garden
A butterfly, quivering, came;
His wings in the somber lichens
Played like a yellow flame.
He looked at the grey geraniums,