Roses Are Red
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"Roses Are Red" is a love poem and children's rhyme with Roud Folk Song Index number 19798. It has spawned multiple humorous and parodic variants.
William Wallace Denslow's illustrations for "The rose is red", from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose
The Faerie Queene
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The Faerie Queene is an English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books I–III were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IV–VI. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: at
Roses Are Red
…are red Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet And so are you. The rhyme builds on poetic conventions that are traceable as far back as Edmund Spenser's epic The Faerie Queene of 1590: It was upon a Sommers shynie day, When Titan faire his beames did display, In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens vew, She bath'd her brest…
Title page of The Faerie Queene, c. 1590
Holinesse defeats Errour: an illustration from Book I, Part l of an 1895–1897 edition
Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret by William Etty, 1833. Tate Britain, London.
Britomart viewing Artegall by Walter Crane from Book III, Part VII of an 1895–1897 edition