Go, lovely rose | Go, lovely Rose!

by Edmund Waller (1608 - 1687) and by Henry Kirke White (1785 - 1806)

Go, lovely Rose!

Language: English

Our translations: SPA

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 retir'd;
Bid her come forth,
  Suffer herself to be [desir'd]¹,
And not blush so to be admir'd.

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!

Yet though thou fade,
From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise;
And teach the maid
That goodness time's rude hand defies;
That virtue lives when beauty dies.

Available sung texts: ← What is this?

• T. Attwood • C. Harris • H. Lawes • J. Salomon

J. Carpenter sets stanzas 1-2, 4-5
J. Salomon sets stanzas 1-4
H. Lawes sets stanzas 1-4
C. Harris sets stanzas 1-4

About the headline (FAQ)

View original text (without footnotes)
See also Ezra Pound's Envoi.

¹ Attwood: "admir'd" [possibly a mistake]

Text Authorship:

by Edmund Waller (1608 - 1687) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
by Henry Kirke White (1785 - 1806) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Samuel Hans Adler (b. 1928), "Go, lovely rose", published 1978 [ high voice and piano ], from Three songs about love : to texts by early English poets, no. 1, Hinshaw Music, Chapel Hill, N.C. [sung text not yet checked]
by Thomas Augustine Arne (1710 - 1778), "Go, lovely Rose" [sung text not yet checked]
by Thomas Attwood (1765 - 1838), "Go, lovely rose" [sung text checked 1 time]
by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "Go, lovely Rose", 2009 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Seymour Barab (1921 - 2014), "Go lovely rose", from Four Songs, no. 1 [sung text not yet checked]
by Ernst Alexander 'Sas' Bunge (1924 - 1980), "Go, lovely rose", published 1950, rev. 1968, from Four XVII^th century poems, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
by John Alden Carpenter (1876 - 1951), "Go, lovely rose", stanzas 1-2,4-5, from Eight Songs, no. 5 [sung text not yet checked]
by Richard Jackson Cumming (b. 1928), "Go, lovely rose" [sung text not yet checked]
by Johann Friedrich Hugo, Freiherr von Dalberg (1760 - 1812), "Go, Lovely Rose", op. 15 no. 1, from Three English Songs and a Glee with an Accompaniment for the Pianoforte, no. 1 [sung text checked 1 time]
by John Woods Duke (1899 - 1984), "Go, lovely Rose ", 1951 [ baritone or tenor and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Arthur Foote (1853 - 1937), "Go, lovely Rose!" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Christopher H. Harris , "So Wondrous Sweet and Fair", stanzas 1-4 [ SATB chorus a cappella ] [sung text checked 1 time]
by Henry Lawes (c1595 - 1662), "The Rose", published 1655, stanzas 1-4 [ voice and continuo ], from The Second Book of Ayres, and Dialogues, no. 9, Confirmed with The Second Book of Ayres and Dialogues, for One, Two, and Three, by Henry Lawes , John Playford, London 1655, Page 9. [sung text checked 2 times]
by Humphrey Procter-Gregg (1895 - 1980), "Go, lovely rose" [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by Roger Quilter (1877 - 1953), "Go, lovely rose", op. 24 no. 3 (1922), published 1923, first performed 1923 [ voice and piano ], from Five English Love Lyrics, no. 3, London, Chappell [sung text checked 1 time]
by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Go, Lovely Rose", op. 308 (1951) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]
by John Theodore Livingston Raynor (1909 - 1970), "Go, Lovely Rose", op. 534 (1959) [sung text not yet checked]
by Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022), "Song", from The Nantucket Songs, no. 4 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Johann Peter Salomon (c1745 - 1815), "Go lov'ly Rose", stanzas 1-4 [sung text checked 1 time]
by Maude Valérie White (1855 - 1937), "Go lovely Rose!", published 1885 [ voice and piano ], London: G. Ricordi & Co. [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

Researcher for this page: Ted Perry

This text was added to the website: 2003-11-19
Line count: 25
Word count: 140