364 THE PATHOS OF THE ROSE IN POETRY 



votre jeunesse,' we recognise the Latin Collige virgo rosam. 

 In another sonnet Ronsard renders the leading theme of the 

 same idyll thus : ! 



Un soleil voit naitre et mourir la Eose. 



When we turn to English poetry, we find in Samuel 

 Daniel's sonnet, ' Look, Delia,' a pretty close rendering of 

 Tasso's stanzas. 2 William Alexander, Earl of Stirling, applied 

 the metaphor of the rose to the waning of human life, 

 without any particular reference to youthful beauty. 3 But 

 the dominant note sounds again in Herrick's incomparable 

 ' Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,' and in Waller's graceful 

 'Go, lovely Rose/ 4 For a final touch I will transcribe a 

 little fragment of Herrick's. It occurs in a poem which was 

 borrowed straight from the lines of Theocritus quoted above 

 (p. 351) : 5 



This to your coyness I will tell ; 



And having spoke it once, farewell. 



The lily will not long endure, 



Nor the snow continue pure ; 



The rose, the violet, one day 



Sees both these lady flowers decay, 



And you must fade as well as they. 



If I am right in reading ' sees ' in the last line but one, 

 then even here, too, we have a reminiscence of the Ausonian 

 idyll. 



From the analysis which I have partly made and partly 

 suggested in the foregoing pages, it will be seen how much 

 modern poetry owes to now almost neglected sources in 

 antique literature, and with what varied gracefulness of new 

 life the singers of the past four centuries invested themes 

 which they derived from scholarship. Other students, who 

 have traversed different fields of European poetry, will 

 probably be able to complete the pedigree which I have, 

 endeavoured to establish in its main outlines from Ausonius 

 to Waller. 



1 Eos Rosarum, p. 80. 2 Ibid. p. 119. 



3 Ibid. p. 138. 4 Ibid. pp. 147, 150. 



5 Ibid. p. 148. It is from ' The Cruel Maid.' 



