The past week has been unusually cold and wet here.  One day was said to have been the coldest ever for this part of Texas.  Of course, we have not had the snow and ice so many north of us have had, but I am remembering one day in the first week of December in 2009. I took this photograph while it was snowing.  The rose is one of my favorite antique roses.  It is called Maggie, and is the only rose I know that has a sweeter fragrance after it is cut to bring inside.  I remember, too, the sweet carol that it illustrates.  Old rose, ancient song, story forever new.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming

From tender stem hath sprung!

Of Jesse’s lineage coming

As men of old have sung.

It came, a flow’ret bright,

Amid the cold of winter,

When half-spent was the night.

~ Fourteenth-Century German Melody

This verse, Sixteenth-Century German