A LITTLE STORY ABOUT THE ROSES

 The flowers in the big garden were all talking about the new rose that had just come to stay with them. "Moss¹ Rose is very beautiful," remarked Peony to the Hollyhock; "you know she was just an ordinary kind of a rose until one evening, when the Queen of the Fairies didn't know just where to go for the night, she leaned over and said to her, 'Will you sleep in the heart of a rose?' and the Queen said of course she would, and in the morning the Fairy Queen in return for the hospitality gave her a delicate veil of moss, and from that time she was called the 'Moss Rose.'"

 

"Indeed!" replied the Hollyhock. "How lovely; I wish a fairy would come through our garden."

 

"Perhaps one will," said the Peony. "At any rate the Rose has always been the queen of flowers, and now that we have a new rose perhaps the Queen of the Fairies may visit our garden."

 

The Hollyhock smiled. "Tell me more," she said. "Do you know any more stories about red roses, or white roses, or pink roses, or yellow roses?"

 

"Yes, indeed," replied the Peony, "for I love roses; everybody does. You know the old Romans loved them just as much as we, and they somehow managed to make them bloom in the winter time. When they wanted to talk over matters that they did not want repeated abroad they hung a rose from the ceiling over the table, and all the conversation was called 'sub rosa,' 'under the rose.' The reason for this was because Cupid once gave a rose to Harpocrates, the God of Silence, and that was what the old Romans were thinking about when they hung the rose over the table and talked secrets."

 

"How interesting!" said the Hollyhock. "Where did you learn all of these wonderful things?"

 

"Oh," replied the Peony. "I learned it from a poet who used to walk among the flowers. The daughter of the owner of this garden would sit and listen to him while he told her stories and legends about roses; always roses, for her name was Rose, you know."

 

"Tell me more," said the Hollyhock, and all the other flowers bent² near, too, for they had heard a little of what the Peony had told and were anxious to hear more of what the poet knew.

 

"He said, I remember," continued the Peony, "that the old name of Syria meant the 'land of roses' and many varieties came from there, and one, the 'Rose of Jericho,' was the most wonderful, for there is an old legend that it grew in the desert in places where the Virgin³ Mary touched her feet when flying into Egypt with the infant Jesus; and they say, too, it will always blossom at Christmas time."

 

"How beautiful!" cried all the flowers. "Poets are like us—for their poetry is the perfume of their souls."

 

Little Bo Peep had lost her sheep,

And didn't know where to find them;

But she turned them all to automobiles⁴,

And now she rides behind them.

1 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

2 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

3 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。

4 automobiles   

n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• When automobiles become popular,the use of the horse and buggy passed away. 汽车普及后，就不再使用马和马车了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Automobiles speed in an endless stream along the boulevard. 宽阔的林荫道上，汽车川流不息。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》