Blue Roses
Roses red and roses whitePlucked I for my love's delight.She would none of all my posies--Bade me gather her blue roses.
Half the world I wandered through,Seeking where such flowers grew;Half the world unto my questAnswered me with laugh and jest.
Home I came at wintertide,But my silly love had died,Seeking with her latest breathRoses from the arms of Death.
It may be beyond the graveShe shall find what she would have.Mine was but an idle quest--Roses white and red are best.
Words in this poem
- bade
- A form of the pat tense of Bid.
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Blue Roses is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, Blue Roses, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/blue-roses.html, id L20395.
Form and metre
Blue Roses is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AA-- whiteA · delightA · posies · roses
- 2 AABB throughA · grewA · questB · jestB
- 3 AABB wintertideA · diedA · breathB · deathB
- 4 AABB graveA · haveA · questB · bestB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Roses red and roses white | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Plucked I for my love's delight. | 8 | ·˘····˘/ |
| She would none of all my posies-- | 7 | ······· |
| Bade me gather her blue roses. | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Half the world I wandered through, | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Seeking where such flowers grew; | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Half the world unto my quest | 7 | ······· |
| Answered me with laugh and jest. | 8 | /˘˘····· |
| Home I came at wintertide, | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| But my silly love had died, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Seeking with her latest breath | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Roses from the arms of Death. | 7 | /˘····· |
| It may be beyond the grave | 7 | ······· |
| She shall find what she would have. | 7 | ······· |
| Mine was but an idle quest-- | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Roses white and red are best. | 7 | /˘····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.