Roses in Literature

The next time you think your roses may not be worth the effort you expend on them, read some of these inspiring lines about the queen of flowers:


"Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers."
-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Naval Treaty)


What is pink? A rose is pink
By the fountain’s brink.
-Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894), British poet


"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
-William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)


"Marilla says that a large family was raised in that old house long ago, and that it was a real pretty place, with a lovely garden and roses climbing all over it. It was full of little children and laughter and songs; and now it is empty, and nothing ever wanders through it but the wind. How lonely and sorrowful it must feel! Perhaps they all come back on moonlit nights. . .the ghosts of the little children of long ago and the roses and the songs. . .and for a little while the old house can dream it is young and joyous again."
-Lucy Maud Montgomery (Anne Of Avonlea)


"At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled shows;
But like of each thing that in season grows."
-William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)


The Secret Garden
"Where, you tend a rose, my lad,
A thistle cannot grow."
-Frances Hodgson Burnett


About The Rose
The distilled water of roses... being put into iunketting dishes, cakes, sauces, and many other pleasant things, giueth a fine and delectable taste...

The conserue of Roses... is thus made: Take the leaues [petals] of Roses, the nails cut off, one pound, put them into a clean pan; then put thereto a pinte and a halfe of scalding water, stirring them together with a woodden slice, so let them stand to mascerate, close couered some two or three houres; then set them to the fire slowly to boyle, adding thereto three pounds of sugar in powder, letting them to samper together according to discretion, some houre or more; then keepe it for your vse.

The same made another way, but better by many degrees: take Roses at your pleasure, put them to boyle in faire water, hauing regard to the quantity; for if you haue many roses, you may take the more water; if fewer, the lesse water will serue: the which you shall boyle at the least three or foure houres, euen as you would boyle a piece of meat, vntill in the eating they be very tender, at which time the roses will lose their colour, that you would thinke your labour lost, and the thing spoyled. But proceed, for though the Roses haue lost their colour, the water hath gotten the tincture thereof; then shall you adde vnto one pound of Roses, foure pound of fine sugar in pure powder, and so according to the rest of the roses. Thus shall you let them boyle gently after the Sugar is put therto, continually stirring it with a woodden Spatula vntill it be cold, whereof one pound weight is worth six pound of the crude or raw conserue, as well for the vertues and goodnesse in taste, as also for the beautifull colour.

The making of the crude or raw conserue is very well knowne, as also Sugar roset, and diuers other pretty things made of roses and sugar, which are impertent vnto our historie, because I intend neither to make thereof an Apothecaries shop, nor a Sugar bakers storehouse, leauing the rest for our cunning confectioners."
Herball or General Historie of Plantes
-John Gerard (1633)
(pages 1259-1265)


Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Geography and Plays
-Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)


The Rose Family
The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
-Robert Frost (1874–1963)


To the Rose upon the Rood of Time
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways:
-William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), Irish poet and playwright


Gather therefore the Rose, whilest yet is prime,
For soone comes age, that will her pride deflowre:
Gather the Rose of love, whilest yet is time,
Whilest loving thou mayst loved be with equall crime.’
The Faerie Queene (l. 16–18)
-Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599), British poet


The Rose of Battle
Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
-William Butler Yeats (1865–1939), Irish poet and playwright


The Sick Rose
O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
-William Blake (1757–1827), Poet


Body’s Beauty. .
The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where
Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent
And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?
Lo! as that youth’s eyes burned at thine, so went
Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent
And round his heart one strangling golden hair.
-Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882), British poet


The Poems of Robert Herrick
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying
-Robert Herrick (1591–1674), British poet, clergyman


The Dancer
Rhododendron,
O wide rose,
open, quiver, pause
and close.
-Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961), U.S. poet


‘Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
’Tis the Last Rose of Summer, (l. 1–4)
-Thomas Moore (1779–1852), Irish poet