Voicing: TTBB with Piano
composed by Z. Randall Stroope
Go, Lovely Rose (1645) is one of the most famous and quoted short verses in all of English literature. It is a lyric poem with four stanzas of five lines each. The rose is the unifliing image, and symbolizes youth, the brevity of beauty, and yearning for companionship. The "conversation" between the speaker and the rose – a metaphor for a beautiful woman – gets more intense with each stanza, as the speaker's appeal becomes more urgent.