The Last Rose of Summer

Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But it's certainly going to be amongst the last few. I thought that I needed to take this photograph because of the delicacy of the colours and the structure, and the tear-like raindrops.

So, if it is the last rose, then this is the next to last bloom (with attendant bug), already fading.

Mendelssohn wrote a Fantasia, Op 15, on the Irish folk tune to which Thomas Moore's famous 1805 poem is usually set.

I'm not going along with the idea in the poem "Thus kindly I scatter/
Thy leaves o'er the bed." My rose is newly opened, and does not yet need to sleep with the scentless and dead ones! In case you wonder what on earth I am talking about, here is the complete poem:


'Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
To give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter,
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
From Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit,
This bleak world alone?