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There’s a leaf in the book of the damask rose

That glows with a tender red;

From the bud, through the bloom, to the dust it goes,

Into rose dust fragrant and dead.

And this word is inscribed on the petals fine

Of that velvety purple page–

“Be true to thy youth while yet it is thine

Ere it sink in the mist of age,

” Ere the bursting bud be grown

To a rose nigh overblown,

And the wind of the autumn eves

Comes blowing and scattering all

The damask drift of the dead rose leaves

Under the orchard wall.

” Like late-blown roses the joy-days flit,

And soon will the east winds blow;

So the love years now must be lived and writ

In red on a page of snow.

” And here the rune of the rose I rede,

‘Tis the heart of the rose and me–

O youth, O maid, in your hour of need,

Be true to the sacred three–

Be true to the love that is love indeed,

To thyself, and thy God, these three!

” Ere the bursting bud is grown

To a rose nigh overblown,

And the wind of the autumn eves

Comes blowing and scattering all

The damask drift of the dead rose leaves

Under the orchard wall.”

Euroclydon of the Red Head was the other name of the Reverend Sylvanus Septimus Cobb during his student days–nothing more piratical than that. Sylvanus obtained the most valuable part of his training in the Canadian backwoods. During his student days he combined the theory of theology with the practice of “logging,” in proportions which were mutually beneficial, and which greatly aided his success as a minister on his return to the old country. Sylvanus Cobb studied in Edinburgh, lodging with his brother in the story next the sky at the corner of Simon Square, supported by red herrings, oatmeal, and the reminiscence that Carlyle had done the same within eyeshot of his front window fifty years before.

“And look at him now!” said Sylvanus Cobb pertinently.

Sylvanus had attained the cognomen of Euroclydon of the Red Head in that breezy collegiate republic whose only order is the Prussian “For Merit.” He was always in a hurry, and his red head, with its fiery, untamed shock of bristle, usually shot into the class-room a yard or so before his broad shoulders. At least, this was the general impression produced. Also, he always brought with him a draught of caller air, like one coming into a close and fire-warmed room out of the still and frost-bound night.

But Edinburgh, its bare “lands” and barren class-rooms, in time waxed wearisome to Sylvanus. He grew to loathe the drone of the classes, the snuffy prelections of professors long settled on the lees of their intellects, who still moused about among the dusty speculations which had done duty for thought when their lectures were new, thirty years ago. “A West Indian nigger,” said Sylvanus quaintly, “ain’t in it with a genuine lazy Scotch professor. Wish I had him out to lumber with me on the Ottawa! He’d have to hump himself or git! I’d learn him to keep hag-hagging at trees that had been dead stumps for half a century!”