And poets in rapturous phrases have sung
The paramount beauty of roses.
Wheresoever she 'bides, whether resting in lanes
Or gracing the proud urban bowers,
The red, royal rose her distinction maintains
As the one regnant queen among flowers.
How joyous are we of the West when we find
That Fate, with her gifts ever chary,
Has decreed that the rose who is queen of her kind
Shall bloom on our wild Western prairie.