Origins of "Roses are Red, Violets are Blue"

OK, it is Valentine's Day and you are in the greeting card aisle of the supermarket. So many of the cards have some variation of (Roses are Red and Violets are Blue.....). Have you wondered about the origins of this famous poem? Are you in danger of having Valentine's Day pass and having to ask your Valentine to "Forgive Me" for forgetting. Start writing your own Roses are Red rhyme (NOW)...or buy the card!

Earliest Uses of Roses are Red and Violets are Blue

The origins of the poem may be traced at least as far back as to the following lines written in 1590 by Sir Edmund Spenser from his epic The Faerie Queene (Book Three, Canto 6, Stanza 6):[2]

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, the boyling heat t'allay;

She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,

And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

A nursery rhyme significantly closer to the modern cliché Valentine's Day poem can be found in Gammer Gurton's Garland, a 1784 collection of English nursery rhymes:

The rose is red, the violet's blue,

The honey's sweet, and so are you.

Thou are my love and I am thine;

I drew thee to my Valentine:

The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it shou'd be you.[3]

 

^{Source: Wikepedia}

So start working on your poem or buy a card, don't want to forget & ask your Valentine to Forgive You

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