Prevod

There was a mighty queen whose garden held the loveliest flowers for every season of the year and from every country in the world. But it was roses she loved above all, and so she had them in the greatest variety, from the wild hedgerow rose with its apple-scented green leaves to the fairest rose of Provence. They climbed the castle walls, twined about the pillars and window frames, crept into the corridors and across the ceilings of every hall; and the roses differed in scent, shape, and colour.

But sorrow and grief dwelt within; the queen lay on her sickbed, and the physicians declared that she must die. "Yet there is one way to save her!" said the wisest among them. "Bring her the loveliest rose in the world, the one that expresses the highest and purest love; if she sets eyes on it before their light fails, she will not die."

And young and old came from far and wide with roses, the loveliest that bloomed in every garden, but none of these was the rose. The flower must be fetched from the garden of love; but which rose there expressed the highest, the purest love?

And the poets sang of the loveliest rose in the world, each naming his own. And word went out far across the land to every heart that beat with love, to every rank and every age.

"No one has yet named the flower," said the wise man. "No one has pointed to the place where it sprang forth in all its glory. It is not the roses from Romeo and Juliet's coffin, nor those from Valborg's grave, though their fragrance will live forever in legends and songs. Nor is it the roses that spring from Winkelried's bloodied lances, from the blood that pours in a sacred stream from the hero's breast as he dies for his country, though no death is sweeter, no rose redder than the blood that flows then. Nor is it that wondrous blossom to whose tending a man devotes the vigour of his life, year after year, through long, sleepless nights in his lonely room—the magical rose of science!"

"I know where it blooms," said a happy mother who came to the queen's bedside with her infant. "I know where the loveliest rose in the world is to be found! The rose that expresses the highest and purest love. It blooms on my sweet child's glowing cheeks when, refreshed by sleep, it opens its eyes and smiles at me with all its love!"

"Lovely is that rose, but there is one lovelier still!" said the wise man. "Yes, far more beautiful!" said one of the women. "I have seen it. No holier, more exalted rose can bloom, yet it was pale as the petals of a tea rose. I saw it on the queen's cheeks; she had laid aside her royal crown and, through the long, sorrowful night, walked with her sick child in her arms, weeping over it, kissing it, and praying to God for it as only a mother prays in her hour of anguish!"

"Holy and wondrous in its power is the white rose of sorrow, yet that is not the one!" "No, I saw the loveliest rose in the world before the Lord's altar," said the devout old bishop. "I saw it shine as though an angel's face had appeared. The young girls came to the communion table and renewed their baptismal covenant, and roses glowed and roses paled upon their fresh cheeks. One young girl stood there, looking up to her God with all her soul's purity and love; that was the expression of the purest and highest love!"

"Blessed be that rose!" said the wise man. "Yet none of you has named the loveliest rose in the world." Then a child entered the room, the queen's little son; tears stood in his eyes and on his cheeks. He carried a large, open book, bound in velvet with great silver clasps.

"Mother!" said the little boy. "Oh, listen to what I have read!" And the child sat down beside the bed and read from the book of Him who gave Himself up to death upon the cross to save mankind, even the generations yet unborn. "There is no greater love!"

And a rosy glow spread over the queen's cheeks, and her eyes grew so wide, so clear, for she saw the loveliest rose in the world rise from the pages of the book, the image of the rose that sprang from Christ's blood upon the wood of the cross.

"I see it!" she said. "Whoever sees that rose, the loveliest on earth, shall never die!"