FIND OUT ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF ROSES ARE RED VIOLETS ARE BLUE POEMS

Roses are red violets are blue poems are considered to be one of the sweetest poems in the English nursery rhyme. These poems are also used to describe the love of a lover. They are used at different places for different purposes, for expressing love, humour, as cute rhymes and even as pick up-lines. 

But do you know how this poem or refrain originated? If not, then you will find it out in this article. Also, we have written below the best known short poems with this refrain. So just keep reading and check out all the info.

Origins of roses are red violets are blue poems

When we talk about the origin of the ‘Roses are red and Violets are blue Poems’, it is quite beautiful to look at the transformation & evolution that happened with the use of this refrain in the poems. So here are a few details about the origin of these poems-

1. So the rhyme that builds on the poetic conventions which are traceable as far back as to 1590 to the Edmund Spendser’s epic ‘The Faerie Queene’, which is as-

It was upon a Sommers shiny day,

When Titan faire his beaches did display,

In a fresh fountaine, fare from all mens view,

She bath’d her breast, the boiling heat t’allay;

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

And all the sweetest flowers, that in the forest glow.

1. Then, a rhyme which is quite similar to the modern and standard version can be easily found in the Gammer Gurton’s Garland, which is a collection of beautiful English nursery rhymes, published by Joseph Johnson in London in 1784.

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 lt was cast and then I drew,

And fortune said it should be you.

1. Then after his, the writer, Victor Hugo was actually similar with Spenser, but may not have known about the nursery rhymes in English when he published one of his novels in the year 1862 named ‘Les Miserables’. And so a song with a character called ‘Fantine’ contains this famous refrain as-

Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,

Les bleuets sont bleus, j’aime mes amours.

Then, ‘Charles Edwin Wilbour’ rendered the English version or translation of this song in the same year as follows-

Violets are blue, roses are red,

Violets are blue, I love my loves.

In this translation or version, Charles replaced the original version’s bleuets with violets, and made the roses red instead of pink, which effectively made the song a lot closer to the English nursery rhyme.

And since then, a lot of roses are red violets are blue poems have been made & circulated in children’s lore. Some of the most famous among them are as follows-

1. The Roses are red.

      Violets are blue.

      Onions stink.

      And so do you.

1. Another, by the the very famous country music singer 'Roger Miller’, parodied the poem in a verse of his famous hits ‘Dang Me’ in 1964 as-

They say roses are red and violets are purple,

Sugar’s sweet and so is maple syruple (sic).

1. And, the third one, from the film ‘Horse Feathers’ by Marx Brothers has Chico Marx which describes the symptoms of cirrhosis as follows-

Cirrhosis are red,

So violets are blue,

So sugar is sweet,

So are you.

And there are a lot more roses are red violets are blue poems which are available on the internet and can be easily searched out.