The flowers were summoned to a meeting. Rose showed up late. While not rejected, the Rose was made to stand alone as queen.
Know your place.
Northcote
Once on a time the choicest flowers,
Were summon’d to a meeting;
And all the Gard’ner’s fragrant stores
Obey’d him as was fitting:
To furnish out a nosegay, they
At call came crowding in;
Arunculas, Carnations gay,
The Pink and Jessamine,
A thousand more you may suppose,
Too tedious here to name;
Among the rest the royal Rose
With proffer’d service came:
Though valued higher than the rest
For her sometimes neglected:
Too late she came, and was, bright guest,
For want of room rejected;
Displeas’d at this, she sighing said,
While for herself she pleaded,
“Since she alone a nosegay made,
“‘Twas hard to pass unheeded!”
This led the Gard’ner well to weigh
Her excellence confess’d;
And from the nosegay forced away,
He thus the slight redress’d:
He ordered her to stand alone,
Their yet unrivall’d queen,
In whom, what charms her subjects own,
Combin’d, improved are seen.
