Since the days of old Adam the welkin has rung
With the praises of sweet scented posies,
And poets in rapturous phrases have sung
The paramount beauties of roses.
Wheresoever she bides, whether nestling in lanes
Or gracing the proud urban bowers,
The red, royal rose her distinction maintains
As the one regnant queen among flowers.
How joyous are we of the west when we find
That Fate, with her gifts ever chary,
Has decreed that the Rose, who is queen of her kind
Shall bloom on our wild western prairie.
Let us laugh at the east as an impotent thing
With envy and jealously crazy,
While grateful Chicago is happy to sing
In the praise of the rose—she's a daisy.