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!

I liked this poem for much the same reasons as I liked Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”; this poem though is more simple and yet (to me at least) more elegant somehow. It appeals to the hopeless romantic in me, I guess ;-)

GUFF-JOSE

Biography

Edmund Waller (1606-1687). Born in Hertfordshire, England, Waller was privately instructed as a young child, then sent to Eton and Cambridge. He served for several years as a member of Parliament, first as an opponent of the crown and later as a Royalist. His advocacy of the Royalist cause and his attempts to moderate between the crown and the Puritans in an increasingly revolutionary period led to his imprisonment and exile. He made his peace with Cromwell and returned to England in 1651. When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Waller regained his seat in Parliament.

Waller was a celebrated poet and wit in his lifetime, and many of his poems had long circulated in manuscript before the 1645 publication of his ‘Poems’. He is known today mostly for his lyrics “Go, Lovely Rose”, and “On a Girdle”.