Classic Poem

I will sing of the delicate rose, the exquisite lover of the garlanded spring.
The rose is the breath of the gods, the delight of mortals, the pleasure of the Graces and the Hours, a voluptuous game for the many-flowering Loves; it is dear to the legends and a gracious flower of the Muses—Love brings its sweetness into thorny paths and grasps and cherishes it in soft light hands!
The glory of the rose—was it not made for feasts and the tables of the Wine-god?
Poets call the Dawn rose-fingered; the Nymphs rose-armed; Aphrodite rose-fleshed.
It is dear also to the common people, for it aids in sickness and wards off disease; it cheats time; and the old age of the rose has the scent of its first youth.
Let us speak of the birth of roses. When the sea brought forth from the foam of the dark-blue deep Aphrodite, dripping with spray; and Zeus brought forth from his head Athena, the lifter of the clamour of war, the terrible goddess of Olympus; then the earth blossomed with the marvellous new flowering of roses, an exquisite birth-gift.
And the high gods who made the rose shed nectar upon the thorn and brought forth the lordly imperishable bud of Lyæus.