Roses are red. Violets are blue...

[Seraphina]

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet
and so are you.

This simple Valentine's poem that we all know came from loftier works. First from Edmund Spenser's epic The Faerie Queene of 1590:

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.

And then later, more closely written to the one we know today is a poem found in Gammer Gurton's Garland, a 1784 collection of English nursery rhymes published in London by Joseph Johnson:

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.

I'm not gonna lie. Those last two poems are fire. lol Even the "nursery rhyme" one. Send it your valentine.

But, what I like best about this simple Valentine's poem is how it is easily and often changed to something more personal or sometimes something funny.

Let's make our own "Roses are red. Violets are blue" poems.

 

[Seraphina]

Roses are red,
and violets are blue,
but neither fair flower
compares to you.

 

[Seraphina]

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
The world doesn't
Revolve around you.

 

[Cyclops]

Roses are red.
Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer's sled
is pulled straight ahead
unlike unstable decisions
caused by scornful derisions.

 

[Seraphina]

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I can't get far enough
Away from you.

 

[Ukkyle]

Rose are red
Violets are blue
Love ya so dearly
But close your mouth when you chew

 

[Seraphina]

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
You hurt me far more
Than I thought you could do.

Your words were pretty
until they cruel they turned.
Actions over words --
A lesson I've learned.

 

[Seraphina]

A favorite of 5 yr olds everywhere....

Roses are red.
Violetes are blue.
You smell like a horse
and you look like one too.

 

[Seraphina]

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
You make my head hurt
and my heart hurt too.