THE FRANKLEY PAPERS

Otago Witness, Issue 3033, 1 May 1912, Page 74

THE FRANKLEY PAPERS

By Edith Howes.

lI—THE ROSES. Born of darkness under the earth and of white light above it, of decaying grossneiss and of pure air, of dew drops and the sod, of sunshine and rain, of starlight and storm, nourished and sustained by heaven and by earth, tended and disciplined by the hand of man, the rose grows into the joy of every age, the sweet and perfected, combining of colour, form, and texture, the marvellous fulfilment of the spirit s dream of beauty. Strong yet sensitive, slow but persistent, sending out fine filaments to thread their way to necessary moisture, the roots perform their hidden darkened functions, holding, supporting, nourishing. In them goes on through the long years the marvellous vegetative alchemy, the changing of death into life, of decay into beauty. From their packed cells the transmuted fluids rush, to rise through close-set passages into the ascending stems. The stems, those rich repositories of racing sap, reach out and spread and lengthen, flinging out long arms of greenwreathed gracefulness. Armoured witih their hooked and thomed defence, they push and cling and Override, unstinting in their growth, prodigals of energy and life-material. Pruned and repulsed, recovering and insistent, and yet again repulsed, fettered and trained and unwillingly obedient to the mind of man, they are forced at last to devote their pulsing life-stream to the full vitality of the flowers. Round and round their slender columns grow the clusters of lunged leaves. Fineveined and pointed, red-tinged and peakedged, - they hang their green surfaces in the flowing invisible storehouses of the air swaying in the health-giving abundance of the potent sunlight. In their minute yet perfect laboratories goes on yet another mystic alchemy, the transmutation of the breathed-out carbon of the world into the tissue-food of the plant. Lightly they hang, yet in their tremulous thinness is strength and force and never-failing industry. Wrapped in green pointed buds, tenderly protected from cold and rain and ravages of insect pests, appear at last the precious blossoms. For these the plant has stored its treasured gains, for their nutrition the nearer leaves forgo their full development. Through waxing summer days and waning nights, through sun and shower and earth-drawn blessing of the dew, the slow buds push and swell and open, till the tree stands crowned with flowers of perfect beauty. Tinted with the soft bright flush of early dawn or dyed with the red glory of the setting sun, white with the still purity of snow or shining with the pale gold of welcome sunshine breaking thromrh a winter cloud, the rounded petals arch and meet and overlap, to swell away again in shell-like curves. Delicately veined, exouisite in texture, in smoothness, in silken lustre of their light-encrystalled surfaces, they fold about the hidden heart where golden pollen grains lie stored in golden sacs; enclosing yet out-bending, protecting yet compelled to show forth their own loveliness. In the soft bosom of the flower is hourly formed that delicious perfume, faint yet steadfast, which, once breathed, can never be forgotten. From every petalled surface the haunting essence steals, to make the air above a little sea of floating fragrance, and to carry to our hearts its memories of long-gone summer days and scented nights. Pain and joy are in its sweetness, and ecstasy besides which is neither pain nor joy; some raptured mystery, nameless, but appealing. Rocked by morning winds and gemmed with pearl-edged dews, glowing in the

noonday sun and breathing -out soft perfumed sighs beneath the silver stillness of the moon, the flowers hang as if some wizard touch had stirred up bright embodied souls to deck the earth. Delight of childhood’s years, cherished object of manhood’s eager culture, dear theme of bard and poet, the rose is loved in every land, praised in every tongue. Man and Nature here combining have produced the glory of the world.