Song 

1.  What is the occasion of the poem?  What literary device does the poet employ?  Describe what you know of the speaker, the listener, and the “she” referred to in the poem.

The occasion of the poem is the speaker who is a man is courting a shy young woman.  The rose is personified and he uses this device to be his envoy.  He wants to go to the woman and plead his case for him.

2.  Paraphrase each of the four stanzas.

Go pretty Rose, tell the young woman that I love and who will accept or reject my proposal.  Tell her I think she is as sweet and fair as you are.  Tell her the young woman that is shy and hides form men that no one can appreciate the roses beauty if it had been in a dessert.  There fore, ask her to come out an show herself rather than being embarrassed bye my admiration.  Then die rose so she can see how rare beauty is and how little time it lasts.

3.  Describe the prosody, including stanza form, rhyme, meter and notable metrical substitutions(spondees), as well as the structure of the poem.  How do these choices help to reinforce the poem’s content?

There are four stanzas.  The rhyme scheme is ababb.  The structure of the poem reveals the message very well.  Each stanza is a complete sentence.  The rose is personified and is meant to deliver messages tot he young woman.  Each stanza tells her something different.  “Tell her…”  “Bid her…”  The speaker wants to tell the woman of her beauty and not to waste it by hiding from life and people.  Using a rose is a perfect object and personifying is a great method of developing the structure and meaning of the poem.

Virtue

1.  Consider first Herbert’s use of metaphor and personification.  In each case, what tow unlike things are being compared, and what do they have in common?

The first metaphor compared the marriage of earth and the sky to the day and how they are both brought together by light.  The dew is being personified, “dew shall weep thy fall tonight” saying the dew is crying.  The rose is also being personified, “sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave / Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye”.  This describes eyes being burned from staring directly at the sun.  Spring is compared to a box of perfumes.  Spring is a wonderful, beautiful smelling season but however the poem points out that it doesn’t last.  The last metaphor compared the soul of a virtuous person to seasoned timber.  The poem points out that when all else is corrupt the virtuous soul lives on.

2.  How is the poem structure, and how does this structure support its meaning?  Consider parallelism, order, and the turn in the poem.

The poems structure first personifies three different objects.  Day, rose, and spring are all personified.  Each is in a different stanza and all are called “sweet”.  The repetition of “must die” at the end of each stanza describing these objects lets the reader know that these “sweet” things all come to an end.  The order in which these object are presented is also significant.  They go in order of their length of life.  The day is the shortest which is the first  stanza, then the rose which lasts longer than a day, then spring is last because it lasts a few months.  This structure supports the poems meaning by giving the idea that good things come to an end.

3.  How does the prosody reinforce the poem’s meaning?

The prosody reinforces the poem’s meaning by using each stanza to show different examples of how things “must die”.  The idea is to show how nothing beautiful can last forever.  The speaker uses differ objects that don’t last forever to prove his point.  The rhyming in each stanza provides further support and creates a mood for the poem.  The last stanza is different from the first three ending with the word lives and reinforces the idea that sometimes things can live on if they are strong enough.