Keats

A sonnet of 1816 by John Keats, “To A Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses”, puts the idea of sending flowers to metaphorical usage. While out walking, the poet has stumbled upon “the sweetest flower wild nature yields,/ A fresh-blown musk-rose”. Its scent, as he inhales it, seems more headily intoxicating than that of the much-prized garden rose. But there is a greater delight still: his friend, the minor poet Charles Wells, has made some kind comments about his work, and the sensual allure of the rose is suddenly overshadowed. These words of friendship ensure that their recipient’s senses are truly “spelled” (spellbound):

    But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,
    My sense with their deliciousness was spelled:
    Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
    Whispered of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquelled.

The rose is still a thing of beauty, but it can’t adequately compare to the beauty of true friendship. (Ironically, the friendship proved as corruptible as the rose after all. Keats couldn’t forgive a piece of unkindness shown to his younger brother Tom by Wells, who accordingly makes a further named appearance in Keats’s poetry as “that degraded Wells”.)

Oppenheim

Even in the 20th century, the rose had lost none of its power to evoke the rewarding and fulfilling aspects of life. This is poignantly evident in the political lyric the American poet James Oppenheim wrote for the early women’s movement in the US. “Bread And Roses” (1911) makes the point that the struggle of working people cannot just be for the necessities of life, such as bread, but must also demand a certain level of spiritual satisfaction too, in the luxurious form of roses.

Its title was adopted in 1912 by striking textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, who marched to their factory gates under banners painted with the words “Bread and Roses”. It has since become one of the anthems of international feminism, even though it was only set to music as recently as the 1970s.

    As we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
    A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
    Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
    For the people hear us singing “Bread and roses, bread and roses!”

    As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
    For they are women’s children and we mother them again,
    Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
    Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread but give us roses!

DH Lawrence

The rose finally met its match in English poetry in the form of the energetically self-promoting DH Lawrence. In his 1917 poem “I Am Like A Rose”, the poet can’t help admiring his own breathtaking perfection. Not Shakespeare’s “lovely youth”, nor the gratifying kindness of Keats’s friend – and certainly not the rose in its splendour – can compare to Lawrence in full bloom:

    I am myself at last; now I achieve
    My very self, I, with the wonder mellow,
    Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear
    And single me, perfected from my fellow.

    Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving
    Its limpid sap to culmination has brought
    Itself more sheer and naked out of the green
    In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought.