"Roses Are Red" is a love poem and children's rhyme with Roud Folk Song Index number 19798.

The rhyme builds on poetic conventions that are traceable as far back as 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 blue, And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

[5] Victor Hugo was probably familiar with Spenser, but may not have known the English nursery rhyme when he published his novel Les Misérables in 1862.

The short poem has since become a snowclone, and numerous satirical versions have long circulated in children's lore.

[9] Country music singer Roger Miller parodied the poem in a verse of his 1964 hit "Dang Me": They say roses are red and violets are purple Sugar's sweet and so is maple syruple.