Roses

Roses are perennial plants of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae. There are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in a number of colours from white through yellows and reds. Most species are native to Asia, with smaller numbers native to Europe, North America, and northwest Africa. Species, cultivars and hybrids are all widely grown for their beauty and fragrance. Rose plants range in size from compact, miniature roses, to climbers that can reach 7 meters in height. Species from different parts of the world easily hybridize, which has given rise to the many types of garden roses. Roses are also considered a symbol of love in certain cultures.

Quotes

 * Now the milch-cows chew the cud, Everywhere are roses, roses; Here a-blow, and there a-bud, Here in pairs, and there in posies. Roses from the gable's cliff With pale flaky petals strowing All the garden-paths, as if Frolic summer took to snowing.
 * Alfred Austin, Fortunatus the Pessimist (London: Macmillan and Co., 1892), Act II, sc. ii; p. 99.


 * 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, "The Sick Rose", in Songs of Experience (1794).


 * The full-blown rose, mid'st dewy sweets, Most perfect dies.
 * , stanzas written by Idomen on Seeing Pharamond in Idomen; or, The Vale of Yumari (New York: Samuel Colman, 1843), "The Confessions", p. 182.


 * When we desire to confine our words, we commonly say they are spoken under the rose.
 * Thomas Browne, Vulgar Errors, as reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).


 * This guelder rose, at far too slight a beck Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples.
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book II.


 * 'Twas a yellow rose, By that south window of the little house, My cousin Romney gathered with his hand On all my birthdays, for me, save the last; And then I shook the tree too rough, too rough, For roses to stay after.
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book VI.


 * Oh, my Luve is like a red, red rose, That's newly sprung in June. O, my Luve is like the melodie, That's sweetly played in tune.
 * Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose, in Posthumous Pieces (1799), st. 1.


 * Give me one wish, and I'd be wassailing In the orchard, my English rose, Or with my shepherd, who'll bring me home.
 * Kate Bush, in "Oh England My Lionheart" on Lionheart (1978).


 * This little girl inside me Is retreating to her favourite place. Go into the garden. Go under the ivy, Under the leaves, Away from the party. Go right to the rose. Go right to the White Rose (For me.)
 * Kate Bush, in "Under the Ivy" (1985).


 * I'll be the Rose of Sharon for you Ooh I'll come in a hurricane for you I'll do it for you...
 * Kate Bush, in "Song of Solomon" on The Red Shoes (1993).


 * It never will rain roses: when we want To have more roses we must plant more trees.
 * George Eliot, Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book III.


 * Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
 * John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book IV, line 256.


 * You can't really measure the effect of this kind of resistance in whether or not X number of bridges were blown up or a regime fell... The White Rose really has a more symbolic value, but that's a very important value.
 * Jud Newborn speaking of the Nazi-era German resistance group White Rose in Newsday (22 February 1993).


 * The red rose whispers of passion, And the white rose breathes of love; O, the red rose is a falcon, And the white rose is a dove.
 * John Boyle O'Reilly, A White Rose, lines 1-4, in In Bohemia (1886), p. 24.


 * Every rose has its thorn Just like every night has its dawn Just like every cowboy sings his sad, sad song. Every rose has its thorn.
 * Poison, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn", Open Up And Say... Ahh (1988).


 * Die of a rose in aromatic pain.
 * Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle I, line 200.


 * Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die.
 * Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712), Canto IV, line 158.


 * God gave His children memory That in life's garden there might be June roses in December.
 * Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, from Roses in December, in Songs of Faith and Doubt (1922)


 * In the mean time, Emily sat picking to pieces a rosebud, from the first deep crimson leaf to the delicate pink inside. Oh! that organ of destructiveness! She had gathered it only an hour ago—a single solitary flower, where the shrubbery had run into too luxuriant a vegetation for much bloom—the very Una of roses among the green leaves, "Making a sunshine in the shady place;" and now she was destroying it.
 * Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality (1831), vol.2, page 98.


 * As rich and purposeless as is the rose: Thy simple doom is to be beautiful.
 * Stephen Phillips, "Marpessa", line 51, in Poems (London: John Lane, 1897), p. 11.


 * Inter omnes flores principatum Rosa facile obtinet.
 * Among all the flowers the rose enjoys indisputable primacy.
 * Crispijn van de Passe, Hortus floridus, Vol. 2 (Arnhem, 1614), p. 12.

cogí rosas con sospiro: vengo del rosale. Del rosal vengo, mi madre, vengo del rosale.'' I gathered the blushing rose—and sigh'd— I come from the rose-grove, mother, I come from the grove of roses.
 * ''Viera estar rosal florido,
 * I saw the rose-grove blushing in pride,
 * Gil Vicente, Del rosal vengo, mi madre ("I Come from the Rose-grove, Mother"), as translated by J. Bowring in Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824), p. 317.


 * The rose-buds lay their crimson lips together.
 * Amelia B. Welby, "Hopeless Love", Stanza 5, in Poems (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1860), p. 230.


 * Red rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
 * William Butler Yeats, To the Rose Upon the Road of Time

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922)

 * Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 678-682.




 * She wore a wreath of roses, The night that first we met.
 * Thomas Haynes Bayly, She Wore a Wreath of Roses.


 * The rose that all are praising Is not the rose for me.
 * Thomas Haynes Bayly, The Rose That all are Praising.


 * Go pretty rose, go to my fair, Go tell her all I fain would dare, Tell her of hope; tell her of spring, Tell her of all I fain would sing, Oh! were I like thee, so fair a thing.
 * Mike Beverly, Go Pretty Rose.


 * Thus to the Rose, the Thistle: Why art thou not of thistle-breed? Of use thou'dst, then, be truly, For asses might upon thee feed.
 * F. N. Bodenstedt, The Rose and Thistle. Translation from the German by Frederick Ricord.


 * O rose, who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet, But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubblewheat,— Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee.
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Dead Rose.


 * And thus, what can we do, Poor rose and poet too, Who both antedate our mission In an unprepared season?
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Lay of the Early Rose.


 * "For if I wait," said she, "Till time for roses be,— For the moss-rose and the musk-rose, Maiden-blush and royal-dusk rose,— "What glory then for me In such a company?— Roses plenty, roses plenty And one nightingale for twenty?"
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Lay of the Early Rose.


 * Red as a rose of Harpocrate.
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Isabel's Child.


 * You smell a rose through a fence: If two should smell it, what matter?
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Walter's Wife.


 * A white rosebud for a guerdon.
 * Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Romance of the Swan's Nest.


 * All June I bound the rose in sheaves, Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves.
 * Robert Browning, One Way of Love.


 * Loveliest of lovely things are they On earth that soonest pass away. The rose that lives its little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
 * William Cullen Bryant, A Scene on the Banks of the Hudson.


 * I'll pu' the budding rose, when Phœbus peeps in view, For its like a baumy kiss o'er her sweet bonnie mou'!.
 * Robert Burns, The Posie.


 * Yon rose-buds in the morning dew, How pure amang the leaves sae green!
 * Robert Burns, To Chloris.


 * When love came first to earth, the Spring Spread rose-beds to receive him.
 * Thomas Campbell, Song. When Love Came First to Earth.


 * Roses were sette of swete savour, With many roses that thei bere.
 * Geoffrey Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose.


 * Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vécu pres d'elle.
 * I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose.
 * Attributed to H. B. Constant by A. Hayward in Introduction to Letters of Mrs. Piozzi. Saadi, the Persian poet, represents a lump of clay with perfume still clinging to it from the petals fallen from the rose-trees. In his Gulistan (Rose Garden).


 * Till the rose's lips grow pale With her sighs.
 * Rose Terry Cooke, Rêve Du Midi.


 * I wish I might a rose-bud grow And thou wouldst cull me from the bower, To place me on that breast of snow Where I should bloom a wintry flower.
 * Dionysius.


 * O beautiful, royal Rose, O Rose, so fair and sweet! Queen of the garden art thou, And I—the Clay at thy feet! * * * * Yet, O thou beautiful Rose! Queen rose, so fair and sweet, What were lover or crown to thee Without the Clay at thy feet?
 * Julia C. R. Dorr, The Clay to the Rose.


 * Oh, raise your deep-fringed lids that close To wrap you in some sweet dream's thrall; I am the spectre of the rose You wore but last night at the ball.
 * Gautier, Spectre of the Rose (from the French). See Werner's Readings No. 8.


 * In Heaven's happy bowers There blossom two flowers, One with fiery glow And one as white as snow; While lo! before them stands, With pale and trembling hands, A spirit who must choose One, and one refuse.
 * R. W. Gilder, The White and Red Rose.


 * Pflücke Rosen, weil sie blühn, Morgen ist nicht heut! Keine Stunde lass entfliehn. Morgen ist nicht heut.
 * Gather roses while they bloom, To-morrow is yet far away. Moments lost have no room In to-morrow or to-day.
 * Gleim, Benutzung der Zeit.


 * It is written on the rose In its glory's full array: Read what those buds disclose— "Passing away."
 * Felicia Hemans, Passing Away.


 * Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave, Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye, Thy root is even in the grave, And thou must die.
 * George Herbert, Vertue, Stanza 2.


 * Roses at first were white, 'Till they co'd not agree, Whether my Sappho's breast Or they more white sho'd be.
 * Robert Herrick, Hesperides. Found in Dodd's Epigrammatists.


 * But ne'er the rose without the thorn.
 * Robert Herrick, The Rose.


 * He came and took me by the hand, Up to a red rose tree, He kept His meaning to Himself, But gave a rose to me. I did not pray Him to lay bare The mystery to me, Enough the rose was Heaven to smell, And His own face to see.
 * Ralph Hodgson, The Mystery.


 * It was not in the winter Our loving lot was cast: It was the time of roses We pluck'd them as we pass'd.
 * Thomas Hood, Ballad, It was not in the Winter.


 * Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street Till—think of that who find life so sweet!— She hates the smell of roses.
 * Thomas Hood, Miss Kilmansegg.


 * And the guelder rose In a great stillness dropped, and ever dropped, Her wealth about her feet.
 * Jean Ingelow, Laurance, Part III.


 * The roses that in yonder hedge appear Outdo our garden-buds which bloom within; But since the hand may pluck them every day, Unmarked they bud, bloom, drop, and drift away.
 * Jean Ingelow, The Four Bridges, Stanza 61.


 * The vermeil rose had blown In frightful scarlet, and its thorns outgrown Like spiked aloe.
 * John Keats, Endymion (1818), Book I, line 694.


 * But the rose leaves herself upon the brier, For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed.
 * John Keats, On Fame.


 * Woo on, with odour wooing me, Faint rose with fading core; For God's rose-thought, that blooms in thee, Will bloom forevermore.
 * George MacDonald, Songs of the Summer Night, Part III.


 * Mais elle était du monde, où les plus belles choses Ont le pire destin; Et Rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses, L'espace d'un matin.
 * But she bloomed on earth, where the most beautiful things have the saddest destiny; And Rose, she lived as live the roses, for the space of a morning.
 * François de Malherbe. In a letter of condolence to M. Du Perrier on the loss of his daughter.


 * And I will make thee beds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies.
 * Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, Stanza 3. Said to be written by Shakespeare and Marlowe.


 * Rose of the desert! thou art to me An emblem of stainless purity,— Of those who, keeping their garments white, Walk on through life with steps aright.
 * David Macbeth Moir, The White Rose.


 * While rose-buds scarcely show'd their hue, But coyly linger'd on the thorn.
 * James Montgomery, The Adventures of a Star.


 * Two roses on one slender spray In sweet communion grew, Together hailed the morning ray And drank the evening dew.
 * James Montgomery, The Roses.


 * Sometimes, when on the Alpine rose The golden sunset leaves its ray, So like a gem the flow'ret glows, We thither bend our headlong way; And though we find no treasure there, We bless the rose that shines so fair.
 * Thomas Moore, The Crystal-Hunters.


 * Long, long be my heart with such memories fill'd! Like the vase, in which roses have once been distill'd— You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
 * Thomas Moore, Farewell! but Whenever you Welcome the Hour.


 * There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream, And the nightingale sings round it all the day long, In the time of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream, To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song.
 * Thomas Moore, Lalla Rookh (1817), The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.


 * No flower of her kindred, No rosebud is nigh, To reflect back her blushes, Or give sigh for sigh.
 * Thomas Moore, Last Rose of Summer.


 * 'Tis the last rose of summer, Left blooming alone.
 * Thomas Moore, Last Rose of Summer.


 * What would the rose with all her pride be worth, Were there no sun to call her brightness forth?
 * Thomas Moore, Love Alone.


 * Why do we shed the rose's bloom Upon the cold, insensate tomb? Can flowery breeze or odor's breath, Affect the slumbering chill of death?
 * Thomas Moore, Odes of Anacreon. Ode XXXII.


 * Rose! thou art the sweetest flower, That ever drank the amber shower; Rose! thou art the fondest child Of dimpled Spring, the wood-nymph wild.
 * Thomas Moore, Odes of Anacreon. Ode XLIV.


 * Oh! there is naught in nature bright Whose roses do not shed their light; When morning paints the Orient skies, Her fingers burn with roseate dyes.
 * Thomas Moore, Odes of Anacreon. Ode LV.


 * The rose distils a healing balm The beating pulse of pain to calm.
 * Thomas Moore, Odes of Anacreon. Ode LV.


 * Rose of the Desert! thus should woman be Shining uncourted, lone and safe, like thee.
 * Thomas Moore, Rose of the Desert.


 * Rose of the Garden! such is woman's lot— Worshipp'd while blooming—when she fades, forgot.
 * Thomas Moore, Rose of the Desert.


 * Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say; Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday?
 * Omar Khayyam, Rubaiyat, FitzGerald's translation.


 * O rose! the sweetest blossom, Of spring the fairest flower, O rose! the joy of heaven. The god of love, with roses His yellow locks adorning, Dances with the hours and graces.
 * J. G. Percival—Anacreontic, Stanza 2.


 * The sweetest flower that blows, I give you as we part For you it is a rose For me it is my heart.
 * Frederic Peterson—At Parting.


 * There was never a daughter of Eve but once, ere the tale of her years be done, Shall know the scent of the Eden Rose, but once beneath the sun; Though the years may bring her joy or pain, fame, sorrow or sacrifice, The hour that brought her the scent of the Rose, she lived it in Paradise.
 * Susan K. Phillips, The Eden Rose. Quoted by Kipling in Mrs. Hauksbee Sits it Out. Published anonymously in St. Louis Globe Democrat, July 13, 1878.


 * There is no gathering the rose without being pricked by the thorns.
 * Pilpay, The Two Travellers, Chapter II. Fable VI.


 * Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, And liquid amber drop from every thorn.
 * Alexander Pope, Autumn, line 36.


 * And when the parent-rose decays and dies, With a resembling face the daughter-buds arise.
 * Matthew Prior, Celia to Damon.


 * We bring roses, beautiful fresh roses, Dewy as the morning and coloured like the dawn; Little tents of odour, where the bee reposes, Swooning in sweetness of the bed he dreams upon.
 * Thomas Buchanan Read, The New Pastoral, Book VII, line 51.


 * Die Rose blüht nicht ohne Dornen. Ja: wenn nur aber nicht die Dornen die Rose überlebten.
 * The rose does not bloom without thorns. True: but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose.
 * Jean Paul Richter, Titan, Zykel 105.


 * The rose saith in the dewy morn, I am most fair; Yet all my loveliness is born Upon a thorn.
 * Christina G. Rossetti, Consider the Lilies of the Field.


 * I watched a rose-bud very long Brought on by dew and sun and shower, Waiting to see the perfect flower: Then when I thought it should be strong It opened at the matin hour And fell at even-song.
 * Christina G. Rossetti, Symbols.


 * The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new, And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears; The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew, And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.
 * Walter Scott, Lady of the Lake (1810), Canto IV.


 * From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
 * William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I (c. 1588-90), Act II, scene 4, line 30.


 * Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose, With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.
 * William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act I, scene 1, line 254.


 * There will we make our peds of roses, And a thousand fragrant posies.
 * William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597; published 1602), Act III, scene 1, line 19. Song.


 * Hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.
 * William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, scene 1, line 107.


 * The red rose on triumphant brier.
 * William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, Act III, scene 1, line 96.


 * And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air, The soul of her beauty and love lay bare.
 * Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant, Part I.


 * Should this fair rose offend thy sight, Placed in thy bosom bare, 'Twill blush to find itself less white, And turn Lancastrian there.
 * James Somerville, The White Rose. Other versions of traditional origin.


 * I am the one rich thing that morn Leaves for the ardent noon to win; Grasp me not, I have a thorn, But bend and take my being in.
 * Harriet Prescott Spofford, Flower Songs, The Rose.


 * It was nothing but a rose I gave her,— Nothing but a rose Any wind might rob of half its savor, Any wind that blows. * * * * * Withered, faded, pressed between these pages, Crumpled, fold on fold,— Once it lay upon her breast, and ages Cannot make it old!
 * Harriet Prescott Spofford, A Sigh.


 * The year of the rose is brief; From the first blade blown to the sheaf, From the thin green leaf to the gold, It has time to be sweet and grow old, To triumph and leave not a leaf.
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, The Year of the Rose.


 * And half in shade and half in sun; The Rose sat in her bower, With a passionate thrill in her crimson heart.
 * Bayard Taylor, Poems of the Orient, The Poet in the East, Stanza 5.


 * And is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose?
 * Alfred Tennyson, The Day-Dream, Moral.


 * 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, Stanza 10.


 * 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, The Rose.


 * How fair is the Rose! what a beautiful flower. The glory of April and May! But the leaves are beginning to fade in an hour, And they wither and die in a day. Yet the Rose has one powerful virtue to boast, Above all the flowers of the field; When its leaves are all dead, and fine colours are lost, Still how sweet a perfume it will yield!
 * Isaac Watts, The Rose.


 * Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered.
 * Wisdom of Solomon, II. 8.


 * The budding rose above the rose full blown.
 * William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book XI.


 * Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir And tumult of defeated dreams.
 * William Butler Yeats, The Secret Rose.

Musk rose (Rosa Moschata)



 * I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields, A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw Its sweets upon the summer.
 * John Keats, To a Friend who Sent some Roses.


 * And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eyes.
 * John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale.

Sweetbrier rose (Eglantine; Rosa Rubiginosa)

 * The fresh eglantine exhaled a breath, Those odours were of power to raise from death.
 * John Dryden, The Flower and the Leaf, line 96.


 * Wild-rose, Sweetbriar, Eglantine, All these pretty names are mine, And scent in every leaf is mine, And a leaf for all is mine, And the scent—Oh, that's divine! Happy-sweet and pungent fine, Pure as dew, and pick'd as wine.
 * Leigh Hunt, Songs and Chorus of the Flowers, Sweetbriar.


 * Rain-scented eglantine Gave temperate sweets to that well-wooing sun.
 * John Keats, Endymion (1818), Book I, line 100.


 * Its sides I'll plant with dew-sweet eglantine.
 * John Keats, Endymion (1818), Book IV, line 700.


 * As through the verdant maze Of sweetbriar hedges I pursue my walk; Or taste the smell of dairy.
 * James Thomson, The Seasons, Spring (1728), line 105.


 * The garden rose may richly bloom In cultured soil and genial air, To cloud the light of Fashion's room Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair, In lonelier grace, to sun and dew The sweetbrier on the hillside shows Its single leaf and fainter hue, Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose!
 * John Greenleaf Whittier, The Bride of Pennacook, Part III. The Daughter.

Wild rose (Rosa Lucida)

 * A wild rose roofs the ruined shed, And that and summer well agree.
 * Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Day Dream.


 * A brier rose, whose buds Yield fragrant harvest for the honey bee.
 * L. E. Landon, The Oak, line 17.


 * A waft from the roadside bank Tells where the wild rose nods.
 * Bayard Taylor, The Guests of Night.