Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Rose (Rosa)
She wore a wreath of roses,
The night that first we met.
Thos. Haynes Bayly—She Wore a Wreath of Roses.
The rose that all are praising
Is not the rose for me.
Thos. 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. Trans. from the German by Frederick Ricord.
The full-blown rose, mid dewy sweets
Most perfect dies.
Maria Brooks—Written on Seeing Pharamond.
This guelder rose, at far too slight a beck
Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples.
E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh. Bk. II.
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.
E. B. Browning—A Dead Rose.
’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.
E. B. Browning—Aurora Leigh. Bk. VI.
And thus, what can we do,
Poor rose and poet too,
Who both antedate our mission
In an unprepared season?
E. B. 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?”
E. B. Browning—A Lay of the Early Rose.
Red as a rose of Harpocrate.
E. B. Browning—Isabel’s Child.
You smell a rose through a fence:
If two should smell it, what matter?
E. B. Browning—Lord Walter’s Wife.
A white rosebud for a guerdon.
E. B. 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.
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’!.
Burns—The Posie.
Yon rose-buds in the morning dew,
How pure amang the leaves sae green!
Burns—To Chloris.
When love came first to earth, the Spring
Spread rose-beds to receive him.
Campbell—Song. When Love Came First to Earth.
Roses were sette of swete savour,
With many roses that thei bere.
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!
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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.
It never will rain roses: when we want
To have more roses we must plant more trees.
George Eliot—Spanish Gypsy. Bk. III.
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 D. 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.
Herbert—Vertue. St. 2.
Roses at first were white,
’Till they co’d not agree,
Whether my Sappho’s breast
Or they more white sho’d be.
Herrick—Hesperides. Found in Dodd’s Epigrammatists.
But ne’er the rose without the thorn.
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.
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.
Hood—Miss Kilmansegg.
And the guelder rose
In a great stillness dropped, and ever dropped,
Her wealth about her feet.
Jean Ingelow—Laurance. Pt. 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. St. 61.
The vermeil rose had blown
In frightful scarlet, and its thorns outgrown
Like spiked aloe.
Keats—Endymion. Bk. I. L. 694.
But the rose leaves herself upon the brier,
For winds to kiss and grateful bees to feed.
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. Pt. III.
Mais elle était du mond, 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.
Marlowe—The Passionate Shepherd to his Love. St. 3. Said to be written by Shakespeare and Marlowe.
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. IV. L. 256.
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.
D. M. Moir—The White Rose.
While rose-buds scarcely show’d their hue,
But coyly linger’d on the thorn.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Moore—Lalla Rookh. The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.
Moore—Last Rose of Summer.
’Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone.
Moore—Last Rose of Summer.
What would the rose with all her pride be worth,
Were there no sun to call her brightness forth?
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?
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.
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.
Moore—Odes of Anacreon. Ode LV.
The rose distils a healing balm
The beating pulse of pain to calm.
Moore—Odes of Anacreon. Ode LV.
Rose of the Desert! thus should woman be
Shining uncourted, lone and safe, like thee.
Moore—Rose of the Desert.
Rose of the Garden! such is woman’s lot—
Worshipp’d while blooming—when she fades, forgot.
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 trans.
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. St. 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. Ch. II. Fable VI.
Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn,
And liquid amber drop from every thorn.
Pope—Autumn. L. 36.
Die of a rose in aromatic pain.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. I. L. 200.
Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die.
Pope—Rape of the Lock. Canto IV. L. 158.
And when the parent-rose decays and dies,
With a resembling face the daughter-buds arise.
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.
Thos. Buchanan Read—The New Pastoral. Bk. VII. L. 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.
Scott—Lady of the Lake. Canto IV.
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.
Henry VI. Pt. I. Act II. Sc. 4. L. 30.
Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,
With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.
Henry VI. Pt. II. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 254.
There will we make our peds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies.
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 19. Song.
Hoary-headed frosts
Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 107.
The red rose on triumphant brier.
Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 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.
Shelley—The Sensitive Plant. Pt. 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.
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. St. 5.
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?
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. St. 10.
I saw the rose-grove blushing in pride,
I gathered the blushing rose—and sigh’d—
I come from the rose-grove, mother,
I come from the grove of roses.
Gil Vicente—I Come from the Rose-grove, Mother. Trans. by John Bowring.
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.
The rosebuds lay their crimson lips together.
Amelia B. Welby—Hopeless Love. St. 5.
Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered.
Wisdom of Solomon. II. 8.
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
Wordsworth—The Prelude. Bk. 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.
W. B. Yeats—The Secret Rose.