The Rose of Warning

>From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, January 1878.



The Rose of Warning.
A German Legend.

[by S.S. Conant]

IN a beautiful Swiss valley
Stood a cloister, long ago,
By a stream that musically
Wandered down from Alpine snow;
Round its walls a garden grew,
With still pathways winding through;
Holy brothers dwelt there, praying,
Musing, guiding, hearts up-staying.

And they tell us that whenever
The cold-handed conqueror Death
Called a brother's spirit, never
Failed this token of last breath--
At the midnight call to prayer,
On the fated brother's chair
Lay a snow-white Rose of Warning:
He must die at break of morning.

In his cell, then, uncomplainin0,
He awaited his last hour,
Gazing still, while life was waning,
Prayerful, on the warning flower
Hung upon the sacred wood,
As once he whose gracious blood
>From his pierced heart flows forever,
Love's divine, unfailing river.

Once, alas! the Rose of Warning
Chose a youth. 'Twas hard to die
When upon the world life's morning
Had just opened her young eye.
Hastily and steathily,
Ere the others enter, he
Laid the flower to warn another-
An old, weary, waiting brother.

But upon the early morrow
O'er the lowly cloister wall
Rose a long loud wail of sorrow:
There were two for burial!
The old man, in happy rest,
With his hands upon his breast;
But the youth, all pale, distorted--
Who could guess how he departed?

And the Rose upon its bosom
Wore a fearful stain of blood!
Never more the snow-white blossom
Warned the sorrowing brotherhood.
Vainly they, at midnight bell,
Watched for that sad miracle;
For with blood was it polluted,
And for service pure unsuited.

And the brothers, broken-hearted,
Died in sorrow, one by one;
And the cloister stood deserted
And decaying, till the sun
Could not find it.--There, they say,
Grow white roses to this day;
But a stain of blood weaves through them,
For the murder-curse clings to them.