BY EDMUND WALLER
The Text
Go, lovely Rose— Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that’s young,
And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung
In deserts where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired: Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.
Then die—that she
The common fate of all things rare May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair! Analysis
The poem is very simply understood other than the language it is worded in so I will simply reword it for you. Keep in mind that the speaker is a male and he is talking to a rose.
Go, lovely rose, (an actual rose, not the name of the girl)
Tell her, the girl who wastes her time and mine, (He is telling the rose to talk to her)
So that she will know
When I compare her to you (the rose),
That she still appears sweet and fair.
Tell her, the girl that is young
And shy
That if you (the rose) had grown
In a desert with no people
That you (the rose) would have died without ever being praised for your beauty.
Hidden beauty is worth little:
Tell her to come forth,
Ignore her shyness so that her beauty can be desired
And tell her not to blush as I admire her
Then die (telling the rose to die in front of her)
So that she will see that just as with all rare things
The time of her sweetness and fairness
Will be short lived
Type of Work and Year of Publication
......."Go, Lovely Rose" is lyric poem with four quatrains (four-line stanzas) in which the speaker addresses a rose he is sending to a young lady. It was first published in 1645 in Poems, a collection of Waller's works. It is among the most famous and most admired short poems in English literature.