“The Last Rose of Summer”
Description
"'Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming alone, All her lovely companions are faded and gone." The singer promises not to leave this flower even when other flowers are "scentless and dead": "Oh! Who would inhabit this bleak world alone!"
Notes
Dr. William Mahar claims this is one of the six most popular songs of the Civil War era. I've no idea what his evidence for this was; I've never seen it mentioned in any Civil War history.
This is another of Moore's pieces that was very popular in print (Granger's Index to Poetry has 15 references to it) but which seems to have had little vogue in tradition. - RBW
Same tune
- The Groves of Blarney (File: OCon033) (per Hoagland in the notes to "Castle Hyde")
- Castle Hyde (Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), pp. 254-255)
Cross references
- cf. "Castle Hyde" (tune)
- cf. "Bells of Shandon" (tune)
References
- DT, LASTROSE*
- ADDITIONAL: Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), pp. 378-379, "The Last Rose of Summer" (1 text)
- Roud #13861
- BI, DTlastro