Inside: 29 Rose Poems For The Romantic At Heart.
If you ask anyone what their favorite flower is, you will rarely hear the rose as the answer. However, roses carry so much meaning and such a passionate message, there isn’t anyone that wouldn’t receive a rose well and with grace and gratitude.
Roses make for beautiful gifts, reminders, and messages, so incorporating them into poetry is a no brainer! Poetry speaks from the heart and soul just as much as rose does, so they really go hand in hand.
Roses are seen as a really romantic flower and gesture, and poetry is a really romantic art form, so to blend the two and you’ve got something really special and dreamy.
If you’re sending some roses and need a poem to go with it, if you’re setting a table for a dinner party with roses of any color and need some interesting place setting additions, place cards with a little poem on it about roses could be a really cute, fun, and creative idea.
Roses are some of the most stunning flowers, and they should invoke art to be created about them. Enjoy these rose poems here.
Meanings Of Different Color Roses
While we all know that the red rose is the most romantic of them all, and the most iconic symbol of love, lust, and pursuit, there’s a dozen other colors of roses that all actually mean something different than romantic love. How cool! Same flower, different color, and it’s a different symbol entirely that you can use to show different people in your life what they mean to you.
If you didn’t know what all of these represented, then here’s a breakdown of the different color roses and what exactly it all means for use in your rose poems.
Yellow – Friendship! The yellow rose represents a platonic friendship kind of love, and is a perfect birthday gift, housewarming gift, or anything that you need to pick up a dozen roses for your bestie for. There’s no greater love than friends!
Orange – Excitement! Generally speaking, these are just a good bolt of energy into your life and orange roses say that you’re excited for something. This is also the congratulatory rose, so it’s perfect when someone you love accomplishes something great.
White – Weddings are where you’re the most likely to find white roses and white rose imagery. While they’re the most minimalist looking flower and they may just happen to fit your minimal aesthetic, they symbolize something very specific. Purity and innocence are represented by the white rose. This might have been a pretty easy guess if you already know what the color white represents, but this is the meaning behind the white rose.
Purple – The purple rose is the one that relates to the red rose the closest. While these are a less intense rose, they still signify adoration and admiration for someone. This is kind of the puppy love kind of rose. The sweet, the gentle, the innocent love. Popularly, purple roses also symbolize love at first sight.
Pink – Appreciation. These subtly sweet and adorable flower choices are perfect for gifts for those that you appreciate the most. Appreciation of course doesn’t have to mean love, but those that you value and are grateful for in your life. The pink element also shows femininity and beauty and grace. Another easy guess based on the color!
Green – Green always represents growth, harvest, and abundance, and with a green rose you’re not going to find anything different. This is the flower you give when you want to acknowledge the growth that someone has gone through and want to see them where they’re at in life.
Whatever it is that you need to say, there’s a rose color that says it!
Rose Poetry
1. Red Rose
I plucked a rose, a red rose rare,
I placed her on a throne
Within my heart; and there I dare
To worship her alone.
An idol, thus, I paid to her
My constant vigil, love, and care.
Upon my knees, I prayed to her,
My whole heart in my prayer.
Alas! my love, my care, my prayer,
Failed! failed to keep my treasure fair.
I saw (my heart filled with despair)
Her drooping head;
Her beauty, grace and fragrance flown,
Her every leaf and petal shorn,
I gazed in silence—and alone—
Upon my dead.
2. Wild Rose of Colorado
O sweet wild rose on the mountain
Where pine-tree forest shields,
Why are your petals pinker
Than roses in lowland fields?
“I dwell here lonely and pensive,
All in the shade and hush;
And I see the sun so rarely,
I cannot help but blush.”
3. The Humming Bird
A sudden whirr of eager sound—
And now a something throbs around
The flowers that watch the fountain. Look!
It touched the rose, the green leaves shook,
I think, and yet so lightly tost
That not a spark of dew was lost.
Tell me, O rose, what thing it is
That now appears, now vanishes?
Surely it took its fire-green hue
From day-breaks that it glittered through;
Quick, for this sparkle of the dawn
Glints through the garden and is gone.
4. Ashes of Roses
Soft on the sunset sky
Bright daylight closes,
Leaving, when light doth die,
Pale hues that mingling lie,-
Ashes of roses.
When love’s warm sun is set,
Love’s brightness closes;
Eyes with hot tears are wet,
In hearts there linger yet
Ashes of roses.
5. Every Rose Hath Its Thorn
There was a maiden all forlorn,
She loved a youth, his name was Thorn,
But he was shy for to disclose
How he loved dear the sweet May Rose.
Lustre sweet it would give to Thorn,
If this fair flower would it adorn,
Said he all other names above
Your charming name alone I love.
Said she of beauty ’tis soon shorn,
Unless that it is joined to Thorn,
It very soon doth droop and die,
And she heaved a gentle sigh.
Said he we’ll wed to-morrow morn,
No more from me you shall be torn,
For you will banish all my woes,
And near my heart I’ll wear the rose.
Now little rose buds they are born,
All clinging to the parent Thorn,
In grace and beauty each one grows,
Full worthy of the sweet May Rose.
Some flowers they only shed their bloom
In the sweet month of leafy June,
But May doth bloom each month in year
A fragrant Rose forever dear.
6. The Wild-Rose
Peeping from out the hedges,
Bending above the brim
Of the stream that threads the meadows,
Fringing the forest dim.
Stealing into my garden
Waiting not my call;
Scaling the ancient gateway,
Creeping under the wall.
Climbing the mossed enclosure
Yonder, where willows wave,
Nestling against the tombstone,
Clustered on every grave.
Christened by name, yet blooming
Silently everywhere;
Asking for naught’ yet giving,
Lavish as summer air,
I love thee, rose of the hedges,
Rose of the streamlet’s rim;
Meek adorner of tombstones,
Prince of the forest dim.
7. The Lovers
The rose did caper on her cheek,
Her bodice rose and fell,
Her pretty speech, like drunken men,
Did stagger pitiful.
Her fingers fumbled at her work, —
Her needle would not go;
What ailed so smart a little maid
It puzzled me to know,
Till opposite I spied a cheek
That bore another rose;
Just opposite, another speech
That like the drunkard goes;
A vest that, like the bodice, danced
To the immortal tune, —
Till those two troubled little clocks
Ticked softly into one.
8. Amid the Roses
There was laughter ‘mid the Roses,
For it was their natal day;
And the children in the garden were
As light of heart as they.
There were sighs amid the Roses,
For the night was coming on;
And the children-weary now of play-
Were ready to be gone.
There are tears amid the Roses,
For the children are asleep;
And the silence of the garden makes
The lonely blossoms weep.
Poetry About Rose Petals
9. The Withered Rose-Tree
‘O words are lightly spoken,’
Said Pearse to Connolly,
‘Maybe a breath of politic words
Has withered our Rose Tree;
Or maybe but a wind that blows
Across the bitter sea.’
‘It needs to be but watered,’
James Connolly replied,
‘To make the green come out again
And spread on every side,
And shake the blossom from the bud
To be the garden’s pride.’
‘But where can we draw water,’
Said Pearse to Connolly,
‘When all the wells are parched away?
O plain as plain can be
There’s nothing but our own red blood
Can make a right Rose Tree.’
10. The First Rose of Summer
“OH dear! is Summer over?”
I heard a rosebud moan,
When first her eyes she opened,
And found she was alone.
“Oh, why did Summer leave me, 5
Little me, belated?
Where are the other roses?
I think they might have waited.”
Soon the little rosebud
Saw to her surprise 10
Other rosebuds opening,
So she dried her eyes.
Then I heard her laughing
Gaily in the sun,
“I thought Summer was over: 15
Why, it ’s just begun!”
Poems About Red Roses
11. To a Friend who sent me some Roses
As late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert;—when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; ’twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excell’d:
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me
My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whisper’d of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell’d.
12. The Rose
The lily has a smooth stalk,
Will never hurt your hand;
But the rose upon her brier
Is lady of the land.
There’s sweetness in an apple tree,
And profit in the corn;
But lady of all beauty
Is a rose upon a thorn.
When with moss and honey
She tips her bending brier,
And half unfolds her glowing heart,
She sets the world on fire.
13. Nobody knows this little Rose
Nobody knows this little Rose —
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it —
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey —
On its breast to lie —
Only a Bird will wonder —
Only a Breeze will sigh —
Ah Little Rose — how easy
For such as thee to die!
14. Sea Rose
Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,
more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem—
you are caught in the drift.
Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.
Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?
by H.D.
15. The Rose Family
The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple’s a rose,
And the pear is, and so’s
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose –
But were always a rose.
by Robert Frost
16. A White Rose
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.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips
17. My Pretty Rose Tree
A flower was offered to me,
Such a flower as May never bore;
But I said ‘I’ve a pretty rose tree,’
And I passed the sweet flower o’er.
Then I went to my pretty rose tree,
To tend her by day and by night;
But my rose turned away with jealousy,
And her thorns were my only delight.
18. A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose
A Rose will I give to you,
A rose bloomed in an arbor,
Silent garden with ecstatic fume
did give birth to that bloom.
A Rose will be for a Rose,
Timelessness for your love,
With deep sensual sensitivity,
Rose will bloom everyday.
In the morning and night,
In the tired noon and shaky evening,
A Rose will bloom for you,
Will Play with your bosom pouring hue.
A Rose will I pluck from the Hurst,
Without violence the plucking will be,
With tender wing the Rose
will Colour your cheek,
Unbutton the beauty you hide,
Will be garden for your dance.
A rose will I bloom in my soul,
The cloud will pour lurid dew,
A mystic rose for atypical mould.
The Rose for you to bloom
on an arid field,
No conditioning set by norms.
Within my mind the Rose will be
fertile for my gratefulness,
The root will be my pleasure
without reason,
My individual self is the root
for your boughs,
A rose single and pure
will bloom for you.
My soul with song sonorous,
Muse heavenly and silence
rootless will praise you,
Each part of your body
will be a hymn,
No mortal dream can be
to make it earthly,
A Rose is a Rose is a rose.
With my love deeply deep you are
beyond facticity of mind,
a penetrating metaphysic,
A soul never to revert with verbal code.
You are a child always open,
Knows nothing of the mind,
A glittering shadow of the divine
on celestial evening.
Which light from which land
did shower grace on you
to make you delighted?
Which pain from which dream
did make you so pensively mystic?
You are a dream, a walking dream,
On the field covered by light.
Beyond mind I search
and no trace is found,
Only air of your presence makes me
frenzy and soulless,
With soulless eremite will I search you
beyond transcendence and above.
Which light doth guard you from my sight?
Which knowledge deep and occult
bewitching me to chase you,
Lovely trance feed your floral body
and painful love around your ambit
protect your chastity.
As darkness enveloped by darkness
or shadow enveloped by shadow,
You are in the garden of my mind
A dream enveloped by a dream,
Or light too glittering to make
shadow of your sight.
In my meditation you gleam and
like a moving image on the still sea
of my mind or no-mind,
Sometimes joy and sometimes pain,
In my awakening state you live
as painful inspiration to write epical rhyme.
You are a total self,
a blossomed being,
A rose of my heart fully blossomed
can worship your shrine,
In the heart of my being an alter,
Day and night will be humming, My mind,
The humming mind to be one with you,
To eat your light to be you.
A rose born in my soul without thorn
to love you to caress you,
With pain lofty and dainty
will I find a path though pathless,
With the opening of the petals
I will find your heart.
If youthful joy mystify the way,
If passion pass into
the sky of consciousness,
With time and by subsiding the surge
I will find you in the stillness
of my mind.
Like rain I will drop on you
and suck the milk of divine magnesia
Of your being,
In that formless delight
we both are one.
19. O Gather Me The Rose
O gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it.
For with the dream foregone, foregone,
The deed foreborn forever,
The worm Regret will canker on,
And time will turn him never.
So were it well to love, my love,
And cheat of any laughter
The fate beneath us, and above,
The dark before and after.
The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
The sunshine and the swallow,
The dream that comes, the wish that goes
The memories that follow!
20. The little rose is dust, my dear
The little rose is dust, my dear;
The elfin wind is gone
That sang a song of silver words
And cooled our hearts with dawn.
And what is left to hope, my dear,
Or what is left to say?
The rose, the little wind and you
Have gone so far away.
Short Rose Poem
21. A Red, Red Rose
O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune …
22. Go, Lovely Rose
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 …
Roses can also symbolise the beauty of the beloved. Even in the seventeenth century, this was an old idea, as Edmund Waller’s famous song ‘Go, Lovely Rose’ suggests. But this is a charming lyric, and proved very influential on later love lyrics (and it was much parodied).
23. One Perfect Rose
A single flow’r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet—
One perfect rose.
I knew the language of the floweret;
“My fragile leaves, ” it said, “his heart enclose.”
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.
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.
24. Fire Roses
Today you grasped
the stars as
they were slipping off
the edge of my horizon
and shook them back
into the sky.
You are
quicksilver
can leave me
slow-footed
wordless.
My skin is alive
with the soft imprint
of your mouth.
How many miracles
can there be?
As I burnt your letters
the pages spread and curled
bloomed
like fire roses.
25. Here’s a blush rose,
with raspberry scent.
Here’s a pink,
come taste the edge.
And here, my dear,
upon the stair,
is simply the hip
of a white-blue rose
I’ve carried up
to bed.
26. Nightstand with Roses
They weren’t red nor was I angry,
but with something five shades lighter
than passion, I plucked the roses bald.
Anyway, they were sorry things.
Their nodding heads on such long stems
reminded me how tiring it is,
always trying to forgive.
And besides, I did it gently, pulling petals
the way one tugs off an insect’s wings,
by twos. What my thumb and fingertips
began to hear—yes, they listened for it—
was the shaggy center’s thick dribble,
the tiny rip of dismemberment,
and, in between, the moment of small panic
that comes before—as just before withdrawing
a mouth from another mouth there comes
that in-suck, that sudden taking back although
you’ve already given it up, given up
to it—the letting go. I couldn’t stop
until I had the whole drawer full
of floating pink on pink.
27. Had I not been awake,
that a child
then whispered in the night, humbly
of a rose—a little rose asleep
in the meadow amid the lupine—of
a shooting-star beyond the daystar, keeping
at the horizon:
kindly, the faint star wanders—
and time, perceptibly
beyond her breath; time, the edge
of its light, a ghost
I am within her eyes, and from my hands
rendered unable to reach for her, she, too, a ghost.
I had loved flowers that faded, these
rose petals had I placed
gently on her closed eyes, upon her eyelids touched
the edge of a cool petal, near
until it would be felt cool in time no longer, this
under one small star wandering, perhaps
awake, this
romance of bones kept as relics—after
faith and plighted troth has faded—but kept
nonetheless, as
the scent of rosebuds from the dust.
28. The Lover Tells of the Rose in His Heart
All things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.
29. A Red, Red Rose
O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee well, my only Luve
And fare thee well, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.
Poetry comes from the soul, right where romance and admiration of any kind does. So no matter what roses you’re sending, no matter what you’re receiving, these rose poems go hand in hand with the beautifully romantic flowers.
Fall in love, appreciate your friends, find value in life through these different rose poems. Give gifts, speak kind words, and use nature to do so. So many works of art and poetry are inspired by nature, and roses inspire us all! Even if all they’re doing is inspiring us to feel something, feeling is the beginning of poetry and art, so you’re in the right place. And processing it out by reading poems and checking out art that feels relevant to your feelings and emotions is the best starting place.
So I hope you love these rose poems! And if you’re using it to give out roses or you received some and just wanted to keep the feeling of romance alive, I hope you got just what you needed from this post.
Want some tulip poems? Check these out! They’re super fun, fresh, and perfect for spring!
