rósir

I am very impressed with the little white roses I bought last Saturday. They are still greedily sucking up water from the glass vase and blooming without going blown. Still, this is the rose that has stood both for the might of York and for resistance against the Nazis. This bouquet has no such enemies to contend with, neither Lancaster nor fascists, so perhaps it is only to be expected that it weather a full week standing in the relative comfort of my study.

Rhymed poetry about flowers has always seemed to be a bit too much, but I find John Boyle O'Reilly (1844–1890), who writes thusly of 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.

Quite. I note that my whites do not blush so; if anything they are slightly green.