The monthly roses still blossom frail and pink, there
are still crimson and yellow roses. But the vines are bare and the
lemon-houses shut. And then, mid-winter, the lowest buds of the
Christmas roses appear under the hedges and rocks and by the streams.
They are very lovely, these first large, cold, pure buds, like violets,
like magnolias, but cold, lit up with the light from the snow.
The days go by, through the brief silence of winter, when the sunshine
is so still and pure, like iced wine, and the dead leaves gleam brown,
and water sounds hoarse in the ravines. It is so still and transcendent,
the cypress trees poise like flames of forgotten darkness, that should
have been blown out at the end of the summer. For as we have candles to
light the darkness of night, so the cypresses are candles to keep the
darkness aflame in the full sunshine.
Meanwhile, the Christmas roses become many. They rise from their budded,
intact humbleness near the ground, they rise up, they throw up their
crystal, they become handsome, they are heaps of confident, mysterious
whiteness in the shadow of a rocky stream.
Pages:
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144