It can be difficult to appreciate the ideas of love and romance from the perspective of twenty-first century living. As members of a society driven to distraction by the rumors of the relationship make-ups and break-ups between celebrities and our number one source of entertainment, television, bombarded viewers with images of men and women competing with each other for the hands and hearts of the rich and the eligible, it can seem daunting to attempt an understanding comparison to simpler types of love from hundreds of years ago. For many in the time of 2010, thoughts of courtship and wooing have gone out the window in favor of the urgent, easily accessed concept of downloadable love. Whether it is a testament to the eternal exuberance of human emotion or just another example of the impatience of men throughout history, one could easily view the poem “Song” from Edmund Waller as proof that the urgency and compulsive neediness of love was present even in the seventeenth century, and that there is a definitive separation in comprehension and communication between the sexes. Doing so, however, would hinge on someone taking the poem from more than only its most literal, face value. In order to truly appreciate the depth of language and Waller’s imaginative use of symbolism, one must look below the surface of his words that begin with insistence upon the rose.
Because the work hails from the year 1645, it is easy for one to assume that the poetic protagonist of “Song,” its narrator, is a man (although one could likely argue that phrases such as “suffer her self to be desired/And not blush so to be admired” (Waller 14-15) lead modern day readers to speculate as to whether a female is expressing these words for what will be an unrequited response, obviously evoked in the imagery articulated by the voice of the narrator) in love. From the opening lines, the urgency in the voice of the poet is both apparent and compelling. The reader is immediately forced to agree with everything the poet passionately implores just as he or she may also begin to encourage the female recipient to follow through on the poet’s request. The poet voices his most private thoughts on the matter of the woman to a rose, hoping that in sending this rose to the object of his desire, she will instantly swoon and, in turn, favorably comply with his desire to begin a romantic entanglement. At once, the rose could easily be interpreted as the poet’s creative take on a love letter, a proposition, a declaration.
In order to appreciate the profundity of Waller’s creativity, one must first ascertain that there is an understanding that the rose is to serve as linguistic interpreter between the opposite sexes, as if their own interpretation through language alone is impossible. In essence, the rose hears the man’s words, understands, and is to bequeath itself to the object of desire. In simply appearing as itself to the woman, the message will be deciphered as per the wishes of the poet. Waller is insinuating that the woman will understand the beauty of the rose better than she would the literacy in the passion of the man’s verbose tenacity. Furthermore, Waller proposes that the man feels he can only be understood by the rose and that the rose is the perfect, central symbol of a variety of ideas in the context of the poem. With the use of such symbolism, many critics believe that Waller has taken his work to a higher degree, bringing brilliance to “a poem which, taken superficially, is a piece of deft and charming vers de societe” (Brooks 249). In many ways, Waller suggests that there exists a great divide between the sexes and that men and women not only speak two separate languages, but also play by vastly different rules.
In the eighth edition of Literature for Composition: Reading and Writing Arguments About Essays, Stories, Poems, and Plays, editors Sylvan Banet, William Burto, and William E. Cain encourage attention to the use of symbolism in Waller’s work, stating that “a poem about the transience of a rose might compel the reader to feel that the transience of female beauty is the larger theme even though it is never explicitly stated” (540). Although the editors make a valid point, one can also contend that the very use of the transience of beauty in general is also a mechanism to encode the poet’s underlying sense of urgency that the female respond in a positive manner, accept the poet’s advances, and move forward with him before her bloom begins to turn from full-blossoming beauty. Like a rose that has charmed the world with its beauty for many days, Waller sees the woman in possible, comparable terms. He suggests his love will soon find that she is losing color and grace and wilting to a brown that is past its prime “to have her graces spied” (Waller 7).
Like the rose, the woman is the poet’s vision of everything that is appealing and alluring in the opposite sex. In speaking to the rose of his desire in delivering the message of his love, the poet realizes that “when I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be” (Waller 4-5). Also like the rose, the object of the poet’s affection is quickly on her way to full bloom, a state that will endure only for a short period. The poet stresses to the rose that they must seize the moment, take full advantage of their youth and beauty as “How small a part of time they share” (Waller 20). In further comparison to the rose, the poet sees that the woman, in turning from a bud to a bloom will fade in such short time that “Small is the worth/Of beauty from the light retired” (Waller 6-7).
The rose is a messenger, a conveyer of a message that only it can symbolize for full interpretation by the woman, and the poet realizes this, speaking to the rose in that urgency so prevalent and powerful in the voice and actions of the young and the virile. Only a poet who, caught in the pragmatics and now-outdated belief in the contrary dynamics in understanding between men and women, could contrive of such a genius means of transmitting the deepest of his soul to another human being. Only a poet could assume that the way the woman will interpret the gesture of the rose is as a gift to be the equivalent of his deep and abiding love for her. Only a brilliant use of language and symbolism and the urgency of love’s requisition could proffer a sense of understanding and agreement with the plight of a young man yearning to learn that he is, in fact, destined for a long-lasting relationship with the one woman he views as this most “lovely rose” that is “so wondrous sweet and fair” (Waller 1, 20).
Works Cited:
Barnet, Sylvan, William Burto, and William E. Cain, eds. Literature for Composition:
Reading and Writing Arguments About Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.
Brooks, Cleanth. Understanding Poetry. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1960.
Waller, Edmund. “Song.” Literature for Composition: Reading and Writing Arguments About
Essays, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.
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