The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart

All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,

The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,

The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mold.

Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps 

of my heart.

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;

I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,

With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold

For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps 

of my heart.

William Butler Yeats

A Rose A Day Keeps The Thistles Away

The Rose Talks Back

I hate the man who builds his name

On ruins of another's fame.

Thus prudes, by characters overthrown,

Imagine that they raise their own.

Thus scribblers, covetous of praise,

Think slander can transplant the bays.

Beauties and bards have equal pride,

With both all rives are decried . . . 

As in the cool of early day 

A poet sought the sweets of May,

The garden's fragrant breath ascends,

And every stalk with odor bends.

A rose he plucked, he gazed, admired,

Thus singing as the Mus inspired:

'Go, rose, my Chloe's bosom grace;

How happy should I prove;

MIght I supply that envied place

With never-fading love!

There, Phoenix-like, beneath her eye,

Involved in fragrance, burn and die!

'Know, hapless flower, that thou shalt find

More fragrant roses there;

I see thy withering head reclined

With envy and despair!

One common fate we both must prove;

You die with envy, I with love.'

'Spare your comparisons,' replied

An angry Rose who grew beside.

'Of all mankind, you should not flout us;

What can a poet do without us?

In every love song roses bloom,

We lend you color and perfume.

Does it to Chloe's charms conduce

To found her praise on our abuse?

Must we, to flatter her, be made

To wither, envy, pine and fade?'

John Gay

On a Damask Rose Upon a Lady's Breast

Let pride grow big, my rose, and let the clear

And damask color of thy leaves appear;

Thomas Carew

Love In A Rose

As late each flower that sweetest blows

I plucked, the garden's pride!

Within the petals of a rose

A sleeping Love I spied . .. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Come Into the Garden by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Come into the garden, Maud,

For the black bat, night, has flown,

Come into the garden, Maud,

I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

And the musk of the rose is blown. 

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near;'

And the white rose weeps, 'She is late;'

The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear;'

And the lily whispers, 'I wait.'

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Roses and Love by Thomas Hood

It was not in the winter

Our loving lot was cast!

It was the time of roses,

We plucked them as we passed.

That churlish season never frowned 

On early lovers yet!

Oh no--the world was newly crowned

With flowers, when first we met.

'Twas twilight, and I bade you go,

But still you held me fast;

It was the time of roses,

We plucked them as we passed!

Thomas Hood

Valentine's Day--the Official Holiday of the Rose

Cupid and Roses

"Philostratus dedicated the rose to Cupid, whom it doth represent in every part.  It is fresh, young and delicate as Cupid, it is crowned with golden yellow hairs, it beareth thorns as darts and leaves as wings, the crimson beauty of the flowers as his glory and dignity, neither the rose nor cupid keepeth any time, and besides this he calleth the rose the light of the earth, the fair bushy top of the spring, the fire of love, the lightning of the land.

John Parkinson

A Bouquet of Roses For You!

Have a bouquet!

A Rose in Water by Walter de la Mare

A rose, in water, to its stem

Decoys a myriad beads of air;

And, lovely with the light on them,

Gives even its thorns their share.

Walter de la Mare

Roses by D. H. Lawrence

Nature responds so beautifully.

Roses are only once-wild roses, that were given an extra chance,

So they bloomed out and filled themselves with colored fullness

Out of sheer desire to be splendid, and more splendid.

D.H. Lawrence

If You Love Roses by George Eliot

If you love the roses--so do I.  I wish

The sky would rain down roses, as they rain

From off the shaken bush.  Why will it not?

Then all the valley would be pink and white

And soft to tread on.  They would fall as light

As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be

Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

George Eliot

A Summer Twilight

Roses by Leigh Hunt

What so ever of beauty yearns and yet reposes,

Blush, and bosom, and sweet breath, took a shape in roses.

Leigh Hunt

Flowers by Longfellow

Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,

One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,

When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,

Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,

God hath written in those stars above;

But not less in the bright flowerets under us

Stands the revelation of his love.

Longfellow

The Very Flowers That Bend

The very flowers that bend and meet,

In sweetening others, grow more sweet;

The clouds by day, the stars by night,

Inweave their floating locks of light;

The rainbow, Heaven's own forehead's braid,

Is but the embrace of sun and shade.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

When summer cometh, full-leaved and strong,

And gay birds gossip the orchard long,

Sing rich sweet honey that no bee sips,

Sing red, red roses, and my love's lips.

Austin Dobson