'TIS THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To 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,
From Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit,
This bleak world alone?

Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, singer and entertainer, has been described as Ireland’s Robert Burns. He was a friend of both Byron and Shelley. Three other poems of his still remembered today are Believe me if All Those Endearing Young Charms, The Minstrel Boy and Oft in the Stilly Night.

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Tomorrow - Mary’s Ghost (Thomas Hood)

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WHEN I WAS FAIR AND YOUNG
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

When I was fair and young, then favour graced me.
Of many was I sought their mistress for to be,
But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe,
How many sighing hearts I have not skill to show,

But I the prouder grew and still this spake therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

Then spake fair Venus' son, that brave victorious boy,
Saying: You dainty dame, for that you be so coy,
I will so pluck your plumes as you shall say no more:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

As soon as he had said, such change grew in my breast
That neither night nor day I could take any rest.
Wherefore I did repent that I had said before:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.

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This poem has been found in a number of old documents. In one, a note tells that it was written when Elizabeth "was suposed to be in love with mounsyre," her French suitor, the Duke of Anjou. Some modern scholars doubt the authorship, but it’s certainly an interesting little poem.

Tomorrow - 'Tis the Last Rose of Summer by Thomas Moore

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I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD
William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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Wordsworth got the inspiration for his famous poem from some words in his sister’s journal. He and Dorothy had been out walking one stormy day at Ullswater, and she later wrote that the daffodils “tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake.”

Tomorrow - a love poem said to be by Queen Elizabeth I

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