A ROSE FROM HOMER'S GRAVE


    ALL the songs of the east speak of the love of the
nightingale for the rose in the silent starlight night. The
winged songster serenades the fragrant flowers.

    Not far from Smyrna, where the merchant drives his loaded
camels, proudly arching their long necks as they journey
beneath the lofty pines over holy ground, I saw a hedge of
roses. The turtle-dove flew among the branches of the tall
trees, and as the sunbeams fell upon her wings, they glistened
as if they were mother-of-pearl. On the rose-bush grew a
flower, more beautiful than them all, and to her the
nightingale sung of his woes; but the rose remained silent,
not even a dewdrop lay like a tear of sympathy on her leaves.
At last she bowed her head over a heap of stones, and said,
"Here rests the greatest singer in the world; over his tomb
will I spread my fragrance, and on it I will let my leaves
fall when the storm scatters them. He who sung of Troy became
earth, and from that earth I have sprung. I, a rose from the
grave of Homer, am too lofty to bloom for a nightingale." Then
the nightingale sung himself to death. A camel-driver came by,
with his loaded camels and his black slaves; his little son
found the dead bird, and buried the lovely songster in the
grave of the great Homer, while the rose trembled in the wind.

    The evening came, and the rose wrapped her leaves more
closely round her, and dreamed: and this was her dream.

    It was a fair sunshiny day; a crowd of strangers drew near
who had undertaken a pilgrimage to the grave of Homer. Among
the strangers was a minstrel from the north, the home of the
clouds and the brilliant lights of the aurora borealis. He
plucked the rose and placed it in a book, and carried it away
into a distant part of the world, his fatherland. The rose
faded with grief, and lay between the leaves of the book,
which he opened in his own home, saying, "Here is a rose from
the grave of Homer."

    Then the flower awoke from her dream, and trembled in the
wind. A drop of dew fell from the leaves upon the singer's
grave. The sun rose, and the flower bloomed more beautiful
than ever. The day was hot, and she was still in her own warm
Asia. Then footsteps approached, strangers, such as the rose
had seen in her dream, came by, and among them was a poet from
the north; he plucked the rose, pressed a kiss upon her fresh
mouth, and carried her away to the home of the clouds and the
northern lights. Like a mummy, the flower now rests in his
"Iliad," and, as in her dream, she hears him say, as he opens
the book, "Here is a rose from the grave of Homer."


                            THE END