Last Rose Of Summer
Thomas moore, nina simone
tis the last rose of summer, left blooming all alone
All her lovely companions are faded and gone.
No flower of her kindred, no rose bud is nigh
To reflect back her blushes and give sigh for sigh.
Ill not leave thee, thou lone one! to pine on the stem
Since the lovely are sleeping, go sleep thou with them
thus kindly I scatter thy leaves oer the bed
Where thy mates of the garden lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow, when friendships decay
And from loves shining circle the gems drop away
When true hearts lie witherd and fond ones are flown
Oh! who would inhabit this bleak world alone!
song performed by by Nina Simone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
The Last Rose Of Summer
Thomas Moore, Nina Simone
'Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming all alone
All her lovely companions are faded and gone.
No flower of her kindred, no rose bud is nigh
To reflect back her blushes and give sigh for sigh.
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one! to pine on the stem
Since the lovely are sleeping, go sleep thou with them
'Thus kindly I scatter thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow, when friendships decay
And from love's shining circle the gems drop away
When true hearts lie wither'd and fond ones are flown
Oh! who would inhabit this bleak world alone!
song performed by by Nina Simone
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tis the Last Rose of Summer
Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone:
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.
I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie wither'd,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
poem by Thomas Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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'Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone; All her lovely companions Are faded and gone.
quote by Thomas More
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On the death of a youth
Ah lovely rose!
Thou art faded in the prime,
Thou were to scatter more light and more beauty,
Millions of others withered
Before they could blossom,
The garden could never enjoy their grandeur.
From where thou did come?
And where thou did go?
Who knows?
The show is on
But thy glory
will never be seen.
poem by Mohammad Akmal Nazir
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On Love And Beauty: I: To A Promessa Sposa
Look on this flower, which, from its little tree
Of bodily stem and branches and leaves green,
Leans lovelier, being toucht, and smelt, and seen
A Rose, a Rose, a Rose! and, though thy three
Senses praise it triply unto thee,
And all their parlous difference intervene,
Yet unto thee, who knowest what they mean,
Thee who art one, and hast been, and shalt be,
Is one as thou; one Rose, one beauteous Rose,
One rosy Beauty. Who shall reason why
The slow stem, on a sudden season, shows
It can be worm unto this butterfly?
We know but this, that when yon ecstasy
Transfigures the green tree, its time of fruit is nigh.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Sonnet: On Calumny
Be thou a saint and yet the world won't spare;
Be thou most chaste and yet, most tongues will talk;
Be thou a crook and yet people don't care;
Be thou a tiger yet, some men will stalk.
Be thou cruel and yet the world will praise;
Be thou too kind and yet the world will taunt;
Be thou rigid and yet the world can't face;
Be thou timid and yet the world will haunt;
Be thou selfish and yet the world loves thee;
Be thou selfless and yet the world thee hates;
Be thou goodly and yet you are not free;
Be thou evil and yet the world thee mates.
Be thou yourself and yet the world finds fault;
Be thou anything, yet the world will vault.
poem by John Celes
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Light Love
'Oh, sad thy lot before I came,
But sadder when I go;
My presence but a flash of flame,
A transitory glow
Between two barren wastes like snow.
What wilt thou do when I am gone,
Where wilt thou rest, my dear?
For cold thy bed to rest upon,
And cold the falling year
Whose withered leaves are lost and sere.'
She hushed the baby at her breast,
She rocked it on her knee:
'And I will rest my lonely rest,
Warmed with the thought of thee,
Rest lulled to rest by memory.'
She hushed the baby with her kiss,
She hushed it with her breast:
'Is death so sadder much than this—
Sure death that builds a nest
For those who elsewhere cannot rest?'
'Oh, sad thy note, my mateless dove,
With tender nestling cold;
But hast thou ne'er another love
Left from the days of old,
To build thy nest of silk and gold,
To warm thy paleness to a blush
When I am far away—
To warm thy coldness to a flush,
And turn thee back to May,
And turn thy twilight back to day?'
She did not answer him again,
But leaned her face aside,
Weary with the pang of shame and pain,
And sore with wounded pride:
He knew his very soul had lied.
She strained his baby in her arms,
His baby to her heart:
'Even let it go, the love that harms:
We twain will never part;
Mine own, his own, how dear thou art.'
'Now never teaze me, tender-eyed,
Sigh-voiced,' he said in scorn:
'For nigh at hand there blooms a bride,
My bride before the morn;
Ripe-blooming she, as thou forlorn.
Ripe-blooming she, my rose, my peach;
She woos me day and night:
I watch her tremble in my reach;
She reddens, my delight,
She ripens, reddens in my sight.'
'And is she like a sunlit rose?
Am I like withered leaves?
Haste where thy spiced garden blows:
But in bare Autumn eves
Wilt thou have store of harvest sheaves?
Thou leavest love, true love behind,
To seek a love as true;
Go, seek in haste: but wilt thou find?
Change new again for new;
Pluck up, enjoy—yea, trample too.
'Alas for her, poor faded rose,
Alas for her her, like me,
Cast down and trampled in the snows.'
'Like thee? nay, not like thee:
She leans, but from a guarded tree.
Farewell, and dream as long ago,
Before we ever met:
Farewell; my swift-paced horse seems slow.'
She raised her eyes, not wet
But hard, to Heaven: 'Does God forget?'
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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I Would I Were the Glow-Worm
I would I were the glow-worm, thou the flower,
That I might fill thy cup with glimmering light;
I would I were the bird, and thou the bower,
To sing thee songs throughout the summer night.
I would I were a pine tree deeply rooted,
And thou the lofty, cloud-beleaguered rock,
Still, while the blasts of heaven around us hooted,
To cleave to thee and weather every shock.
I would I were the rill, and thou the river;
So might I, leaping from some headlong steep,
With all my waters lost in thine for ever,
Be hurried onwards to the unfathomed deep.
I would--what would I not? O foolish dreaming!
My words are but as leaves by autumn shed,
That, in the faded moonlight idly gleaming,
Drop on the grave where all our love lies dead.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Presence
ALL things give token of thee!
As soon as the bright sun is shining,
Thou too wilt follow, I trust.
When in the garden thou walk'st,
Thou then art the rose of all roses,
Lily of lilies as well.
When thou dost move in the dance,
Then each constellation moves also;
With thee and round thee they move.
Night! oh, what bliss were the night!
For then thou o'ershadow'st the lustre,
Dazzling and fair, of the moon.
Dazzling and beauteous art thou,
And flowers, and moon, and the planets
Homage pay, Sun, but to thee.
Sun! to me also be thou
Creator of days bright and glorious;
Life and Eternity this!
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Song I
FROM THE FRENCH OF CARDINAL BERNIS.
I.
FRUIT of Aurora's tears, fair rose,
On whose soft leaves fond zephyrs play,
Oh! queen of flowers, thy buds disclose,
And give thy fragrance to the day;
Unveil thy transient charms:--ah, no!
A little be thy bloom delay'd,
Since the same hour that bids thee blow,
Shall see thee droop thy languid head.
II.
But go! and on Themira's breast
Find, happy flower! thy throne and tomb;
While, jealous of a fate so blest,
How shall I envy thee thy doom!
Should some rude hand approach thee there,
Guard the sweet shrine thou wilt adorn;
Ah! punish those who rashly dare,
And for my rivals keep thy thorn.
III.
Love shall himself thy boughs compose,
And bid thy wanton leaves divide;
He'll show thee how, my lovely rose,
To deck her bosom, not to hide:
And thou shalt tell the cruel maid
How frail are youth and beauty's charms,
And teach her, ere her own shall fade,
To give them to her lover's arms.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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Oh, Could We Do With This World of Ours
Oh, could we do with this world of ours
As thou dost with thy garden bowers,
Reject the weeds and keep the flowers,
What a heaven on earth we'd make it!
So bright a dwelling should be our own,
So warranted free from sigh or frown,
That angels soon would be coming down,
By the week or month to take it.
Like those gay flies that wing through air,
And in themselves a lustre bear,
A stock of light, still ready there,
Whenver they wish to use it;
So in this world I'd make for thee,
Our hearts should all like fire-flies be,
And the flash of wit or poesy
Break forth whenever we choose it.
While every joy that glads our sphere
Hath still some shadow hovering near,
In this new world of ours, my dear,
Such shadows will all be omitted; --
Unless they're like that graceful one,
Which when thou'rt dancing in the sun,
Still near thee, leaves a charm upon
Each spot where it hath flitted!
poem by Thomas Moore
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Before the Mirror
I.
WHITE ROSE in red rose-garden
Is not so white;
Snowdrops that plead for pardon
And pine for fright
Because the hard East blows
Over their maiden rows
Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.
Behind the veil, forbidden,
Shut up from sight,
Love, is there sorrow hidden,
Is there delight?
Is joy thy dower or grief,
White rose of weary leaf,
Late rose whose life is brief, whose loves are light?
Soft snows that hard winds harden
Till each flake bite
Fill all the flowerless garden
Whose flowers took flight
Long since when summer ceased,
And men rose up from feast,
And warm west wind grew east, and warm day night.
II.
“Come snow, come wind or thunder
High up in air,
I watch my face, and wonder
At my bright hair;
Nought else exalts or grieves
The rose at heart, that heaves
With love of her own leaves and lips that pair.
“She knows not loves that kissed her
She knows not where.
Art thou the ghost, my sister,
White sister there,
Am I the ghost, who knows?
My hand, a fallen rose,
Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care.
“I cannot see what pleasures
Or what pains were;
What pale new loves and treasures
New years will bear;
What beam will fall, what shower,
What grief or joy for dower;
But one thing knows the flower; the flower is fair.”
III.
Glad, but not flushed with gladness,
Since joys go by;
Sad, but not bent with sadness,
Since sorrows die;
Deep in the gleaming glass
She sees all past things pass,
And all sweet life that was lie down and lie.
There glowing ghosts of flowers
Draw down, draw nigh;
And wings of swift spent hours
Take flight and fly;
She sees by formless gleams,
She hears across cold streams,
Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh.
Face fallen and white throat lifted,
With sleepless eye
She sees old loves that drifted,
She knew not why,
Old loves and faded fears
Float down a stream that hears
The flowing of all men’s tears beneath the sky.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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My Lovely Rose
I have a rose in the garden,
Unfolding red lovely petals,
With thorns surrounding it,
Could not touch and smell its fragrance.
I left the garden,
I left my lovely rose,
Far away yet so near,
Could not touch and smell its fragrance.
Time have passed,
Have seen again my rose,
Beautiful and sweetly scented at its full blossom,
Could not touch and smell its fragrance.
My rose is not mine anymore,
Yet I let my rose feel
Thy undoubting care and heart rejoicing,
Could glimpse again my lovely rose.
poem by Dong Agosto
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The Rose And The Fern
LADY, life's sweetest lesson wouldst thou learn,
Come thou with me to Love's enchanted bower
High overhead the trellised roses burn;
Beneath thy feet behold the feathery fern,--
A leaf without a flower.
What though the rose leaves fall? They still are sweet,
And have been lovely in their beauteous prime,
While the bare frond seems ever to repeat,
'For us no bud, no blossom, wakes to greet
The joyous flowering time!'
Heed thou the lesson. Life has leaves to tread
And flowers to cherish; summer round thee glows;
Wait not till autumn's fading robes are shed,
But while its petals still are burning red
Gather life's full-blown rose!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Treasures Of The Deep
What hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells?
Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious main!
-Pale glistening pearls, and rainbow-colour'd shells,
Bright things which gleam unreck'd-of, and in vain!
-Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!
We ask not such from thee.
Yet more, the depths have more!-what wealth untold,
Far down, and shining through their stillness lies!
Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold,
Won from ten thousand royal Argosies!
-Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful main!
Earth claims not these again.
Yet more, the depths have more!-thy waves have roll'd
Above the cities of a world gone by!
Sand hath fill'd up the palaces of old,
Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry.
-Dash o'er them, ocean! in thy scornful play!
Man yields them to decay.
Yet more! the billows and the depths have more!
High hearts and brave are gather'd to thy breast!
They hear not now the booming waters roar,
The battle thunders will not break their rest.
-Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!
Give back the true and brave!
Give back the lost and lovely!-those for whom
The place was kept at board and hearth so long,
The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,
And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song!
Hold fast thy buried Isles, thy towers o'erthrown-
But all is not thine own.
To thee the love of woman hath gone down,
Dark flow thy tides o'er manhood's noble head,
O'er youth's bright locks, and beauty's flowery crown,
-Yet must thou hear a voice-restore the dead!
Earth shall reclaim her precious things from thee!
-Restore the dead, thou sea!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Lily Confidante
Lily! lady of the garden!
Let me press my lip to thine!
Love must tell its story, Lily!
Listen thou to mine.
Two I choose to know the secret --
Thee, and yonder wordless flute;
Dragons watch me, tender Lily,
And thou must be mute.
There's a maiden, and her name is . . .
Hist! was that a rose-leaf fell?
See, the rose is listening, Lily,
And the rose may tell.
Lily-browed and lily-hearted,
She is very dear to me;
Lovely? yes, if being lovely
Is -- resembling thee.
Six to half a score of summers
Make the sweetest of the "teens" --
Not too young to guess, dear Lily,
What a lover means.
Laughing girl, and thoughtful woman,
I am puzzled how to woo --
Shall I praise, or pique her, Lily?
Tell me what to do.
"Silly lover, if thy Lily
Like her sister lilies be,
Thou must woo, if thou wouldst wear her,
With a simple plea.
"Love's the lover's only magic,
Truth the very subtlest art;
Love that feigns, and lips that flatter,
Win no modest heart.
"Like the dewdrop in my bosom,
Be thy guileless language, youth;
Falsehood buyeth falsehood only,
Truth must purchase truth.
"As thou talkest at the fireside,
With the little children by --
As thou prayest in the darkness,
When thy God is nigh --
"With a speech as chaste and gentle,
And such meanings as become
Ear of child, or ear of angel,
Speak, or be thou dumb.
"Woo her thus, and she shall give thee
Of her heart the sinless whole,
All the girl within her bosom,
And her woman's soul."
poem by Henry Timrod
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To Emma
O come, dearest Emma! the rose is full blown,
And the riches of Flora are lavishly strown,
The air is all softness, and crystal the streams,
And the West is resplendently clothèd in beams.
We will hasten, my fair, to the opening glades,
The quaintly carved seats, and the freshening shades,
Where the faeries are chanting their evening hymns,
And in the last sunbeam the sylph lightly swims.
And when thou art weary I’ll find thee a bed
Of mosses and flowers to pillow thy head;
There, beauteous Emma, I’ll sit at thy feet,
While my story of love I enraptured repeat.
So fondly I’ll breathe, and so softly I’ll sigh,
Thou wilt think that some amorous Zephyr is nigh-
Ah, no! - as I breathe, I will press thy fair knee,
And then thou wilt know that the sigh comes from me.
Then why, lovely girl, should we lose all these blisses?
That mortal’s fool who such happiness misses.
So smile acquiescence, and give me thy hand,
With love-looking eyes, and with voice sweetly bland.
poem by Byron (1815)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Song (#2)
THOU art the soul of a summer's day,
Thou art the breath of the rose.
But the summer is fled
And the rose is dead
Where are they gone, who knows, who knows?
Thou art the blood of my heart o' hearts,
Thou art my soul's repose,
But my heart grows numb
And my soul is dumb
Where art thou, love, who knows, who knows?
Thou art the hope of my after years —
Sun for my winter snows
But the years go by
'Neath a clouded sky.
Where shall we meet, who knows, who knows?
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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The Forsaken
The dead are in their silent graves,
And the dew is cold above,
And the living weep and sigh,
Over dust that once was love.
Once I only wept the dead,
But now the living cause my pain:
How couldst thou steal me from my tears,
To leave me to my tears again?
My Mother rests beneath the sod,—
Her rest is calm and very deep:
I wish'd that she could see our loves,—
But now I gladden in her sleep.
Last night unbound my raven locks,
The morning saw them turned to gray,
Once they were black and well beloved,
But thou art changed,—and so are they!
The useless lock I gave thee once,
To gaze upon and think of me,
Was ta'en with smiles,—but this was torn
In sorrow that I send to thee!
poem by Thomas Hood
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Sweetest Love, I do not go
Sweetest love, I do not go,
For weariness of thee,
Nor in hope the world can show
A fitter love for me;
But since that I
Must die at last, 'tis best
To use myself in jest
Thus by feign'd deaths to die.
Yesternight the sun went hence,
And yet is here today;
He hath no desire nor sense,
Nor half so short a way:
Then fear not me,
But believe that I shall make
Speedier journeys, since I take
More wings and spurs than he.
O how feeble is man's power,
That if good fortune fall,
Cannot add another hour,
Nor a lost hour recall!
But come bad chance,
And we join to'it our strength,
And we teach it art and length,
Itself o'er us to'advance.
When thou sigh'st, thou sigh'st not wind,
But sigh'st my soul away;
When thou weep'st, unkindly kind,
My life's blood doth decay.
It cannot be
That thou lov'st me, as thou say'st,
If in thine my life thou waste,
That art the best of me.
Let not thy divining heart
Forethink me any ill;
Destiny may take thy part,
And may thy fears fulfil;
But think that we
Are but turn'd aside to sleep;
They who one another keep
Alive, ne'er parted be.
poem by John Donne
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