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.
