The rose of all the world is not for me. I want for my part Only the little white rose of Scotland That smells sharp and sweetöand breaks the heart.

-Grieve
  Stony Limits and other poems,'The Little White Rose'.

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

-Marquis, Don(ald Robert Perry)
Quoted in E  Anthony O Rare Don Marquis (1962), ch.6.

Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, of human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of nature's works to me expunged and razed, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

-Milton,John
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.3, l.40^50.

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.

-Milton,John
  Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.4, l.256.

'Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone.

-Moore,Thomas
  Irish Melodies,'' Tis the Last Rose of Summer'.

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.

-Parker, Dorothy ne¤  e Rothschild
  Not So Deep as AWell,'One Perfect Rose'.

The growth of a large business is merelya survival of the fittest† The American Beauty rose can be produced in the splendor and fragrance which bring cheer to its beholder only by sacrificing the early buds which grow up around it. 692

-Rockefeller,John D(avison)
Quoted inW J Ghent Our Benevolent Feudalism (1902).

In me the tiger sniffs the rose.

-Sassoon, Siegfried Louvain
  The Heart'sJourney, pt.7,'In me, past, present, future meet'.

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beautyand love lay bare.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'The Sensitive Plant', pt.1, l.29^32.

So passeth, in the passing of a day, Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower, No more doth flourish after first decay, That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower, Of manya lady, and many a paramour: Gather therefore the rose, whilst yet is prime, For soon comes age, that will her pride deflower: Gather the rose of love, whilst yet is time, Whilst loving thou mayst love'  d be with equal crime.

-Spenser, Edmund
  The Faerie Queen, bk.2, canto12, stanza 75.

  Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose, is a rose.

-Stein, Gertrude
  Tender Buttons,'Sacred Emily'.

For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives.

-Swinburne, Algernon Charles
  Poems and Ballads,'Dolores', stanza 20.

If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather, Blown fields or flowered closes, Green pleasure or grey grief.

-Swinburne, Algernon Charles
  Poems and Ballads,'A Match'.

Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone; Maud And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown. For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky.

-Tennyson
  Maud, pt.1, sect.22, stanza1, l.850^9.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls.

-Tennyson
  Maud, pt.1, sect.22, stanza 9, l.902.

There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries,'She is near, she is near;' And the white rose weeps,'She is late;' The larkspur listens,'I hear, I hear;' And the lily whispers,'I wait.' She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airya tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat; Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.

-Tennyson
  Maud, pt.1, sect.22, stanzas10^11, l. 908^23.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

-Thomas, Dylan Marlais
  'The ForceThatThrough the Green Fuse Drives the Flower'.

The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose.

-Thompson, Francis
'Daisy' (published1890).

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.

-Waller, Edmund
  'Go, lovely rose'.

Rose of all Roses,Rose of all the World! The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, trouble the air, And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care.

-Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)
  'The Rose of Battle', l.1^4. Collected in The Rose (1893).