How Did the Rose's Eye Come to Know Tears?!

From "Talk of the Heart"

The flowers awoke in the garden and whispered among themselves: What can be keeping her — why has she not come yet?!

Did the rosebud scratch her delicate gown when it pressed upon its hems yesterday, kissing it and storing up, in its heart, some of its immortal fragrance?

Or did the lovesick nightingale pour out his courting song to her and wound her tender feelings?...

Or has she... found her beloved — the one she so often dreamed of as she reclined in the bosom of this garden — in the bosom of our homeland — the homeland of fragrance and of love...!

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And the girl rose from her bed, a ray of light in her eyes, on her brow a touch of the red rose's blush, and in her breast breathings such as no perfume had ever known...

And she went out... but not to embrace the flowers and commune with the nightingales in the boughs, as was her custom at every dawn...

She passed the roses — without a care — and they tumbled forward to embrace her and fling themselves upon her mouth... but quickly they drew back, dewy-eyed, broken-hearted; they had seen in her eyes the remnant of a strange dream.

And on her lips... the trace of a kiss that held desire, that held passion...

As for the girl of the garden, she went off to bring her beautiful dream true, and sat at the edge of the garden, looking, and waiting; but the phantom of her beloved did not pass by at the hour he was wont to every morning.

And the rose set about drying the tears from its lids, for it knew that she would never return...

And every morning from that day forth, the memory would come over it and it would burn, its eyes brimming with tears.

And O my sister, if one morning you should meet that bashful mouth sprinkled with tears, wipe the dew from its lid with your lips, and whisper to it to keep its rosy color for us — for we still have need of that red blush....