The Last Rose of Summer

The Last Rose of Summer is a poem by Thomas Moore, which was set to music in the early to mid nineteenth century. It was made popular in the twenty first century in a recording by Charlotte Church and the Irish Tenors. Moore wrote the poem while at Jenkinstown Park in County Kilkenny, Ireland, and it was published in a collection of Moore's work called Irish Melodies (1807-34).

The Last Rose of Summer

:Tis the last rose of summer,

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:Left blooming alone,

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:All her lovely companions

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:Are faded and gone.

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:No flow'r of her kindred

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:No rosebud is nigh

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:To reflect back her blushes,

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:Or give sigh for sigh.

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:I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,

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:To pine on the stem,

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:Since the lovely are sleeping,

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:Go, sleep thou with them

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:Thus kindly I'll scatter

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:Thy leaves o'er the bed,

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:Where thy mates of the garden

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:Lie scentless and dead.

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:So soon may I follow

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:When friendships decay;

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:And from love's shining circle

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:The gems drop away

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:When true hearts lie wither'd

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:And fond ones are flow'n

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:Oh! Who would inhabit

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:This bleak world alone?

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