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| The smiles of God’s goodness. Wilberforce. | 1 |
| Behold the glowing blush upon the rose. T. B. Read. | 2 |
| And I will make the beds of roses. Marlowe. | 3 |
| The budding rose above the rose full blown. Wordsworth. | 4 |
| From off this brier pluck a white rose with me. Shakespeare. | 5 |
| The red rose on triumphant brier. Shakespeare. | 6 |
| Blown roses hold their sweetness to the last. Dryden. | 7 |
| A white rosebud for a guerdon. E. B. Browning. | 8 |
| | Roses were sette of sweete savour, |
| With many roses that thei bere. |
Chaucer. | 9 |
| | Yon rose-buds in the morning dew, |
| How pure amang the leaves sae green! |
Burns. | 10 |
| When love came first to earth, the spring spread rose-beds to receive him. Campbell. | 11 |
| The rose that lives its little hour is prized beyond the sculptured flower. Bryant. | 12 |
| The gathered rose and the stolen heart can charm but for a day. Emma C. Embury. | 13 |
| Happy are they who can create a rose-tree, or erect a honeysuckle. Gray. | 14 |
| And ’tis my faith that every flower enjoys the air it breathes. Wordsworth. | 15 |
| ’Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming alone. Moore. | 16 |
| O’ercanopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine. Shakespeare. | 17 |
| The rose is wont with pride to swell, and ever seeks to rise. Goethe. | 18 |
| It never rains roses; when we want more roses, we must plant more trees. George Eliot. | 19 |
| The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose. Shakespeare. | 20 |
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| | All June I bound the rose in sheaves, |
| Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves. |
Robert Browning. | 21 |
| Proud be the rose, with rain and dews her head impearling. Wordsworth. | 22 |
| | Rose of the desert! thus should woman be |
| Shining uncourted, lone and safe, like thee. |
Moore. | 23 |
| The coming spring would first appear, and all this place with roses strew, if busy feet would let them grow. Waller. | 24 |
| Mild May’s eldest child, the coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, the murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Keats. | 25 |
| The rosebuds lay their crimson lips together, and the green leaves are whispering to themselves. Amelia B. Welby. | 26 |
| | And half in shade and half in sun; |
| The rose sat in her bower, |
| With a passionate thrill in her crimson heart. |
Bayard Taylor. | 27 |
| | For those roses bright, oh, those roses bright! |
| I have twined them in my sister’s locks |
| That are hid in the dust from sight. |
Phœbe Cary. | 28 |
| | 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. |
Herrick. | 29 |
| A wreath of dewy roses, fresh and sweet, just brought from out the garden’s cool retreat. Julia C. R. Dorr. | 30 |
| | Rose of the garden! such is woman’s lot— |
| Worshipp’d while blooming—when she fades, forgot. |
Moore. | 31 |
| | And when the parent-rose decays and dies, |
| With a resembling face the daughter-buds arise. |
Prior. | 32 |
| | The rose distils a healing balm |
| The beating pulse of pain to calm. |
Moore. | 33 |
| | 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, embalmed in tears. |
Scott. | 34 |
| | The rose saith in the dewy morn, |
| I am most fair; |
| Yet all my loveliness is born |
| Upon a thorn. |
Christina G. Rossetti. | 35 |
| | O, how much more doth Beauty beauteous seem, |
| By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! |
| The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem, |
| For that sweet odor which doth in it live. |
Shakespeare. | 36 |
| | The rose |
| Propt at the cottage door with careful hands, |
| Bursts its green bud, and looks abroad for May. |
Thos. Buchanan Read. | 37 |
| | 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. | 38 |
| | 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. | 39 |
| | 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. | 40 |
| | What would the rose with all her pride be worth, |
| Were there no sun to call her brightness forth? |
Moore. | 41 |
| | It is written on the rose |
| In its glory’s full array: |
| Read what those buds disclose— |
| “Passing away.” |
Mrs. Hemans. | 42 |
| | 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. | 43 |
| | 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. | 44 |
| | 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. | 45 |
| | 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. | 46 |
| | 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. | 47 |
| | A sunbeam warm’d thee into bloom; |
| A zephyr’s kiss thy blushes gave: |
| The tears of ev’ning shed perfume, |
| And morn will beam upon thy grave. |
| How like to thee, thou transient flower, |
| The doom of all we love on earth; |
| Beauty, like thee, but decks an hour, |
| Decay feeds on it from its birth. |
Bohn. | 48 |
| | If on creation’s morn the king of heaven |
| To shrubs and flowers a sovereign lord had given, |
| O beauteous rose, he had anointed thee |
| Of shrubs and flowers the sovereign lord to be; |
| The spotless emblem of unsullied truth, |
| The smile of beauty and the glow of youth, |
| The garden’s pride, the grace of vernal bowers, |
| The blush of meadows, and the eye of flowers. |
Bohn. | 49 |
| | 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. | 50 |
| | 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. | 51 |
| | 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. | 52 |
| | 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 valleys 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 yet waking, all at once. |
| Over the sea, Queen, where we soon shall go, |
| Will it rain roses? |
George Eliot. | 53 |
| | 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. | 54 |
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