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The Rose of Iowa

Writer's picture: Logan DrakeLogan Drake

A Poem on Iowa's Natural Beauty

By Major SHM Byers (1897)


Hast seen the wild rose of the West,

The sweetest child of the morn?

Its feet the dewy fields have pressed,

It's breath is on the corn.

The gladsome prairie rolls and sweeps

Like billows to the sea,

While on its breast the red rose keeps

The white rose company.

The wild, wild rose whose fragrance dear

To every breeze is flung,

The same wild rose that blossomed here

When Iowa was young.


O, sons of heroes ever wear

The Wild rose on your shield

No other flower half so fair

In loves' immortal field.

Let others sing of mountain snows,

Or palms beside the sea,

The state whose emblem is the rose

The fairest far to me.

Comments


Iowa's Natural Heritage.

As we reflect on our connections to Iowa's native heritage, nature, and the land, let us also remember that the state of Iowa rests on the territorial lands of the Sioux, Sauk, Meskwaki, and Ioway people.

These peoples stewarded the land we now call home for many generations and were then forcibly removed. Let us keep their histories, traditions, and practices in our hearts and minds as we care for the land they also called home.  

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In loving memory of Dick Doerr, who never lacked appreciation of the Earth's beauty, or failed to express it. 

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