Yes--look at the beautiful Rose, radiant with dewdrops, ruddy in the morning light, or dreamily lovely, with the moonbeams melting through her moon-shaped petals. Unchanged since that primeval age when she was a living idol--a visible and blest presence of the Great Goddess of beauty and love--whether as Astarte or Ma Nerf Baaltis, Ashtaroth or Venus. Let her breathe in her fragrance of the far times when millions in a strange and busy age now forgotten thronged rose-garlanded to the temples; when, bearing roses, they gathered to wild worship at the Feast of the New Moon, under shady groves or in picturesque high places among the ancient rocks. Rose-breathing, rose-perfumed, amid sweetest music and black Assyrian eyes, in the gliding dance under thousands of brazen serpent lamps, or far in dusky fragrant forests, they adored the Rose Queen--the very visible spirit and incarnation of nature in her loveliest form. Over many a shining sea passed the barks, rose-wreathed, to the far isles of the South: she--the Rose--was there! From many a steep crag looked out on the blue ocean the temple of the Star Queen, the Heaven and Sea-born sister of the Rose: and she was there. Through beautiful temples the lover strayed to meet his love, and, taking the rose from her brow, won her in worship of the Serpent-light of Loveliness: for she, the Rose--the Mystery of all Rapture--was ever there! On coin and jewel, in prayer and song they bore the Rose-Venus to every land in a living, ever-thrilling romaunt--far goldener, more thrilling with poetry than was in later times the dull lay of De Loris and Clopinel: for wherever man found joy and beauty in life, feast, and song, she--the Rose Incarnate--was there. In the Rose was the twin sister of all the mysteries: we may read them as clearly in her, if we will, as ever did rapt Sidonian, or priest, or daughter of the Aryan, or whatever the early unknown burning race may have been, which built fire-towers in melting Lesbos, and names Cor-on, the crowned Corinthos, ere yet a syllable of Greek had ever rung on earth. She is the Cup; her calyx and dew reflect the goblet of life, and the nectar-wine of life, typical in early times of endless generation, in later days of _re_-generation. Born of the sea, she recalls the Cor-olla Cup-Ark in which Hercules--Arech El Es--crossed the sea between the rosy dawn and ruddy sundown, 'strength upborne by love and life.' She is the Morning Star which hovered over Aphrodite when the Queen rose from the sea, since each was either in that Trinity; as in later days the star shone on him who rose from Maria the sea, accompanied by _Iona_, the dove. She is the Shell and the Ark of so many ancient legends--that Ark into which life enters, and from which it is born--the Ark of Earth, in which Adon and the flowers sleep till Spring--the Ark of maternal Being, from which man is born--the exquisite and beautiful Rose. She is the Door or Gate of