Algernon Charles Swinburne - Geoffrey Chaucer - Lynn Anderson - Henry Austin Dobson - Henri Matisse - Ernest Dowson - Richard Brinsley Sheridan - Richard Dawkins - Oliver! 1968 - Willa Catha - Stevie Wonder - Arthur Conan Doyle - Elvis Costello - A E Housman - Stanley Spenser - Edmund Waller - Gertrude Stein - Francis Thompson - Nursery Rhymes & Proverbs - Robert Browning - Dorothy Parker - Alfred Lord Tennyson - W B Yeats - Pierre de Ronsard - Walter de la Mare - William Morris - Stephen Sondheim - Robert Herrick - Tupac Shakur - Horace - Frederick Weatherly - William Shakespeare - John Milton - John Keats - Christopher Marlowe - Thomas Moore - Anne Bronte - George MacDonald - James Joyce - Dusty Ermine 1936 -
For the crown of our life as it closes
Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust;
No thorns go as deep as the rose’s,
And love is more cruel than lust. Algernon Charles Swinburne, Delores
And she was fayr as is the rose in May. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
I beg your pardon
I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine
There’s gotta be a little rain some time. Lynn Anderson, Rose Garden, 1970
The ladies of St James’s!
They’re painted to the eyes;
Their white it stays for ever,
Their red it never dies:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
Her colour comes and goes;
It trembles to a lily, –
It wavers to a rose. Henry Austin Dobson, The Ladies of St James’s, 1883
There is nothing more difficult for a truly creative painter than to paint a rose, because before he can do so he has first to forget all the roses that were ever painted. Henri Matisse
They are not long, the days of wine and roses. Ernest Dowson
Won’t you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Wild roses are agreeable little flowers ... The human eye and the human nose went to work on wild roses, enlarging them, shaping them, doubling up the petals, tinting them, refining the bloom. Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth p45
Who will buy my sweet red roses? Oliver! 1968 starring Ron Moody & Oliver Reed & Shani Wallis & Harry Secombe & Mark Lester & Peggy Mount & Leonard Rossiter & Kenneth Cranham & Hugh Griffith & Jack Wild et al, director Carol Reed, flower-lady’s song
Oh this is the joy of the rose. That it blows. And goes. Willa Catha
Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall. Stevie Wonder
What a lovely thing a rose is! Arthur Conan Doyle, The Naval Treaty
What a good year for the roses
Many blooms still linger there
The lawn could stand another mowin’
Funny I don’t even care
As you turn to walk away
As the door behind you closes
The only thing I have to say
It's been a good year for the roses … Elvis Costello, Good Year for the Roses
By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade. A E Housman, A Shropshire Lad
Gather therefore the rose, whilst yet is prime,
For soon comes age, that will her pride deflower:
Gather the rose of lvoe, whilst yet is time,
Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime. Stanley Spenser, The Faerie Queen
Go, lovely rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be. Edmund Waller, ‘Go, Lovely Rose’ 1645
A rose is a rose is a rose, is a rose. Gertrude Stein
The fairest things have fleetest end,
Their scent survives their close:
But the rose’s scent is bitterness
To him that loved the rose! Francis Thompson, Daisy, 1913
Ring-a-ring o’roses. Nursery Rhyme, cited Kate Greenaway, Mother Goose, 1881
It was roses, roses all the way. Robert Browning, The Patriot
Still more labyrinthine buds the rose. Robert Browning, Sordello
Any nose
May ravage with impunity a rose. ibid.
I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak –
Then the good minute goes. Robert Browning, Two in the Campagna
Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose. Dorothy Parker, One Perfect Rose, 1937
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. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Maud, 1855
Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls. ibid.
Far-off, most secret and inviolate Rose. W B Yeats, The Secret Rose, 1899
Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways. W B Yeats, To the Rose upon the Rood of Time
Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Ursa’s children died. ibid.
See, Mignonne hath not the rose
That this morning did unclose
Her purple mantle to the light,
Lost, before the day is dead,
The glory of her radiant red,
Her colour, bright as yours is bright? Pierre de Ronsard, Odes, a Cassandre, 1555
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose. Walter de la Mare 1873-1956
Each morn a thousand roses brings, you say:
Yes, but where leaves the rose of yesterday? Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubdiyat of Omar Khayyam
I sometimes think that never blows so red
The rose as where some buried Caesar bled. ibid.
One thing is certain, and the rest is lies;
The flower that once hath blown for ever dies. ibid.
And ever she sung from noon to noon,
‘Two red roses across the moon’. William Morris, 1858
Everything’s coming up roses. Stephen Sondheim, song 1959
But, for Man’s fault, then was the thorn,
Without the fragrant rose-bud, born;
But ne’er the rose without the thorn. Robert Herrick, The Rose, 1647
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying. Robert Herrick, ‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’, 1648