Even the models for all those English chintz roses were likely new breeds crossed with the roses that came from China, roses that had, as most European roses did not at the time, the capacity to bloom and bloom for months rather than in one burst. The seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick’s famous lines “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may / Old time is still a-flying” are about the old varieties of roses that bloomed briefly in the spring. When roses came to bloom into the summer and autumn the sic transit gloria mundi/vanitas moral of European roses was undermined. Women were still urged to
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Even the models for all those English chintz roses were likely new breeds crossed with the roses that came from China, roses that had, as most European roses did not at the time, the capacity to bloom and bloom for months rather than in one burst. The seventeenth-century poet Robert Herrick’s famous lines “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may / Old time is still a-flying” are about the old varieties of roses that bloomed briefly in the spring. When roses came to bloom into the summer and autumn the sic transit gloria mundi/vanitas moral of European roses was undermined. Women were still urged to marry young, but roses bloomed on through the summer and beyond.
