I.
"Early in the morning,
The sultan's daughter
Walked in her father's garden,
Gathering the bright flowers,
All full of dew.
And as she gathered them,
She wondered more and more
Who was the master of the flowers,
And made them grow
Out of the cold, dark earth.
In my heart,' she said,
'I love him; and for him
Would leave my father's palace
To labor in his garden.'
II.
"And at midnight
As she lay upon her bed,
She heard a voice
Call to her from the garden,
And, looking forth from her window,
She saw a beautiful youth
Standing among the flowers;
And she went down to him,
And opened the door for him;
And he said to her,'O maiden!
Thou hast thought of me with love,
And for thy sake
Out of my father's kingdom
Have I come hither.
I am the master of the flowers;
My garden is in paradise,
And if thou wilt go with me,
Thy bridal garland
Shall be of bright red flowers.'
And then he took from his finger
A golden ring,
And asked the sultan's daughter
If she would be his bride.
And when she answered him with love,
His wounds began to bleed,
And she said to him,
'O Love! how red thy heart is,
And thy hands are full of roses.'
'For thy sake,' answered he,
'For thy sake is my heart so red,
For thee I bring these roses.
I gathered them at the cross
Whereon I died for thee!
Come, for my father calls,
Thou art my celestial bride!'
And the sultan's daughter
Followed him to his father's garden." [Footnote 161]
[Footnote 161: Golden Legend, by Longfellow.]
Throughout all the early church legends, we find whatever is pure and beautiful in sentiment and exalted in art carefully cherished, and constantly presented to the contemplation of the votary in some glowing form that could act as a counterpoise to the corrupting influence of heathen passions and pursuits.
When the holy mother stood on Calvary, her heart steeped in agony unutterable, not the least cause of her anguish was to see the waste of those precious drops of blood as they bedewed the hard insensible ground. But behold! as she gazes, and her tears fall, delicate bell-shaped crimson blossoms spring up, and absorb the human dew; and thus, through these frail beautifiers of suffering and consolers of grief, the heart of the mother was comforted, and the soul is drawn to look upward, away from the agonizing ignominy of the cross to the beatified glory to which he is translated at the price of so much woe.
Thus also, in the horrid details of the early martyrdoms, we constantly meet these compensating, suggestive metaphors of the glory won. The painful agony of the downward crucifixion of St. Peter, the waste of blood from that congested head, springs into a fountain of clear gurgling water, from which flows healing for all suffering flesh that seek its miraculous aid. As St. Grata bears the decapitated head of her friend St. Alexander to the tomb, lo! flowers spring up as the blood falls, and are gathered by the mourners to deck his grave.
Among the little band that followed Mother Seton more than fifty years ago, in her divine mission of self-abnegation and Christian love, was a delicate young woman whose life had been spent in ease, amid the devoted love and admiration of a large family circle. Dreamy and poetical by nature, her talent, then rare among American women, was revered and looked up to by seven young brothers as something marvellous; and no implement more fatiguing than the pen or needle was ever allowed to weary her dainty fingers. One day as she sat amid her flowers and books, conning a new inspiration, suddenly the open door of heaven seemed to stand before her, and she felt a voice saying, "He who would come after me must take up his cross and follow me." And believing that her heavenly spouse had called, she closed her books, and turned her face steadfastly away from her weeping friends, and went cheerfully forth to privation and labor. Faithful to her new vows, religion yet did not forbid the exercise of the talent God had given her; only now her themes had become more exalted, and the love and perennial sublimity of heaven took the place of the perishable and annual blooms of time. The privations and labors spent in the service of suffering humanity soon reduced her delicate frame to patient helplessness; but the beauty and love of God in his works and ways triumphed over all her bodily infirmities, and her strength was never too frail to raise a sursum corda in his praise. Whitsuntide of 1813 rose in the light of a glorious May morning, and the sufferer lay panting for breath, after a night of exhausting hemorrhage, and she knew that the angel, with palm in hand, stood by her side ready to conduct her to God. In blissful hope of the fruition that now dawned upon all those past sacrifices, labors, and sufferings, she fell, to the music of those unseen, undulating wings, into a sweet sleep. Mother Seton, who had left the sufferer's bed for a breath of the fresh morning air, just then returned from the garden, bearing in her hand the first rose of the season, knowing how refreshing and suggestive such a gift would be to the weary sufferer. Rejoiced to find her in repose, she gently laid the flower upon her bosom, above the white, folded hands, and quietly left the room. The fitful fever sleep was soon ended, and as Mary opened her eyes, first the fragrance, then the beauty of this heavenly symbol, caught her eye. Wasted and dying though the earthly tenement was, the soul, the poet's soul, yet glowed with vital power; and raising from a little table at her side a pencil and paper, she thereon breathed her last pean of poetic utterance in these lines:
"The morning was beautiful, mild, and serene,
All nature had waked from repose;
Maternal affection came silently in,
And placed on my bosom a rose.
"Poor nature was weak, and had almost prevailed,
The weary eyelids were closed;
But the soul rose in triumph, and joyfully hailed
The sweet queen of flowers—the rose.
"Whitsuntide was the time, the season of love:
Methought the blest spirit had chose
To leave for awhile the mild form of a dove,
And come in the blush of a rose.
"Come, Heavenly Spirit, descend on each breast,
And there let thy blessing repose,
As thou once didst on Mary, thy temple of rest;
For Mary's our mystical rose.
"Oh! may every rose that blooms forth evermore,
Enkindle the spirit of those
Who see it, or wear it, to bless and adore
The hand that created the rose."
When Mother Seton returned, she found the lines with the rose still lying on her bosom; and looking into the sweet upturned face, she saw the signet of death stamped upon the luminous eyes, and knew by her short, heavy breathing that ere long she would be singing her songs in the rose-gardens of paradise.
Suggestive of peace and lowliness as are these creations, yet even they have been perverted by the passions of man into insignia of blood and shame. The thirty years' war of the houses of York and Lancaster make the white and red rose ever associated with the sorrows and humiliations, the heroic endurance, and true womanly nobility of Margaret of Anjou. We see her as she stands under her rose-banner, on the heights of Tewksbury, with dauntless courage in her heart, and a mother's wild prayer upon her lips; standing there, amid the wild havoc, unflinchingly, until the wailing, weird blast of the trumpeters tells her that her beautiful white rose is broken at the stem, and its leaves scattered, trampled, and bathed in the life-blood of her only son.