Roses, roses, oh! brilliant and bright
In the gorgeous month of June,
Raising your blushing queenly heads
In the glare of summer noon.
There are roses crimson, roses red,
Roses of amber hue,
Gazing with upturned loveliness
On heaven’s deep azure blue.
Stately in presence, dazzling in tint,
Shaming the setting sun,
From the rounded cup of the open flow’r
To the bud but scarce begun.
Too bright are ye in your conscious pride,
And your wealth of summer hue;
No bond, no tie, could ever unite
This weary heart and you.
There’s a little rose, by a little house,
On a little plot of ground,
Whose every root, and every branch,
Around my heart is wound.
’Tis a fair small thing of tender pink—
With no flaunting crimson dye—
And a world of sunny sweetness looks
From out its modest eye.
Unseen, maybe, by many who pass,
And known, perhaps, by few—
Oh! little rose, thou know’st full well
The tie betwixt me and you.
Oh! roses brilliant, and roses bright,
All lovely though ye be,
That little rose by the little house
Is the only rose for me!