"The Last Rose of Summer" is a poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. He wrote it in 1805, while staying at Jenkinstown Castle in County Kilkenny, Ireland, where he was said to have been inspired by a specimen of Rosa 'Old Blush'.[1]
The poem is set to a traditional tune called "Aisling an Óigfhear", or "The Young Man's Dream",[2] which was transcribed by Edward Bunting in 1792, based on a performance by harper Denis Hempson (Donnchadh Ó hAmhsaigh) at the Belfast Harp Festival.[3] The poem and the tune together were published in December 1813 in volume 5 of Thomas Moore's A Selection of Irish Melodies. The original piano accompaniment was written by John Andrew Stevenson, several other arrangements followed in the 19th and 20th centuries. The poem is now probably at least as well known in its song form as in the original.
Poem
Sheet music of The Last Rose of Summer
'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes
Or 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,
And 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?[4]
Musical settings
Classical
The following is an incomplete selection of "theme and variations" created during the 19th and 20th centuries.[5]
as no. 6 "Sad and Luckless was the Season" in volume 2 of his Irish Songs, WoO 153 (written 1814, published 1816)
as no. 4 of his Six National Airs with Variations, Op. 105 for flute and piano (composed 1818, published 1819)
Ferdinand Ries: Grand sestetto ... in which is introduced the admired air 'The Last Rose Summer', Op. 100, for string quartet, double bass, piano (1819)
Friedrich Kalkbrenner: Eighth Fantasia for the piano forte in which is introduced a favourite Irish melody, Op. 50, for piano (1821)
Charles Bochsa: Fantaisie et variations sur un air favori irlandais, for harp (1822)
Mauro Giuliani: No. 2 of Six Airs irlandois nationales variés, Op. 125, for guitar (c.1825)
Ignaz Moscheles: The Recollections of Ireland, Op. 69, for piano and orchestra (1826)
Felix Mendelssohn: Fantasia on 'The Last Rose of Summer', Op. 15, for piano (c.1827)
Jean-Louis Tulou: Souvenir anglais, Op. 51, for 2 flutes and piano (1828)
Friedrich Kuhlau: Variations on an Irish Folksong, Op. 105, for flute and piano (1829)
Kaspar Kummer: Des Sommers letzte Rose, no. 6 in: Transcriptionen über beliebte Themen, Op. 57, for 2 flutes (1829)
Auguste Franchomme: Variations sur des thèmes russes et écossais, Op. 6 (1835)
Henri Herz: The Last Rose of Summer, Op. 159, for piano (1842)
Henri Vieuxtemps: No. 5 of Bouquet Américain, Op. 33 ("Dernière rose de l'été"), for violin and piano (1860)
Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst: No. 6 of Sechs mehrstimmige Etüden (Six Polyphonic Studies): Variations on 'The Last Rose of Summer', for violin solo (1865)
Joseph O'Kelly: La Dernière rose; no. 6 of Les Soirées enfantines, 2nd series, versions for piano solo and 4-hands (1866)
Jules Danbé: La Dernière rose. Mélodie irlandaise, fantaisie, for violin and piano (1870)
Charles Gounod: The Last Rose of Summer, for mixed choir (1873)
Dudley Buck: The Last Rose of Summer, Op. 59; introduction, theme, and variations for organ (1877)[6]
Sydney Smith: The Last Rose of Summer. Paraphrase de concert, Op. 173, for piano (c.1880)
Félix Godefroid: La Dernière rose d'été. Mélodie irlandaise, for harp (1891)
Max Reger: Vierstimmiger Kanon über das Lied 'Letzte Rose', for piano (1903)
Paul Hindemith alluded to both words and music in his On Hearing 'The Last Rose of Summer', part of Nine English Songs (1944)
Benjamin Britten: no. 9 of Folksong Arrangements, vol. 4: Moore's Irish Melodies (1958)
Jörg Widmann: The Last Rose of Summer. A Farewell Song for viola and small orchestra (2023)[7]
Popular
In Japan, the melody is widely known as the song Niwa-no-Chigusa (庭の千草), meaning "The Plants in the Garden". The poem was adapted by Tadashi Satomi (1824–1886) and published as part of Primary School Songbooks (Volume III) in 1884 by the Japanese Education Ministry.
A Swedish language poem "Vid Roines strand" by Zacharias Topelius has several times been recorded with this tune, among others by Hootenanny Singers in 1966.
Tom Waits included a song entitled "The Last Rose of Summer" on his 1993 album The Black Rider, based on the eponymous stage production by Waits, Robert Wilson (director) and William S. Burroughs. In it, the singer talks about the petals of his "favourite rose" being shrouded "in shadows dark and long". The song ends with the lines: "I can be found in the garden singing this song / When the last rose of summer is gone".
Kanye West refers to the poem in his song Blood on the Leaves on his album Yeezus wherein the rapper writes, "That summer night holdin' long and long, 'din long Now waiting for the summer rose and (breathe)" (2013).[8]
Anna Meredith recorded a version as "Last Rose" featured on her album "Varmints" (2016).
Gintaras Januševičius uses the melody (with its Irish title "Aislean an Oigfear") as the opening of his 2019 narrative recital programme "The New Colossus". The programme is dedicated to people who built New York and their stories. The melody is included as a tribute to Irish people. Januševičius then uses attacca to go into the next piece – "L'isle Joyeuse" by Claude Debussy.
In the 1941 film Here Comes Mr. Jordan, it is the character Joe Pendelton's inability to play "The Last Rose of Summer" on his saxophone in any way other than badly that allows him to prove that he is alive in another man's body; all the other characters think he is the dead man from whom he got the body, but when he plays the sax for his old boxing manager, he uses the same wrong note in the melody as he always did, and which thus confirms his story of coming back from the after-life.
In the 1944 film Gaslight, the melody is associated with the opera singer Alice Alquist, the murdered aunt of the protagonist, Paula (Ingrid Bergman).
In the 1953 I Love Lucy, episode "Never Do Business With Friends" (Season 2, Episode 31), Ethel Mertz (played by Vivian Vance) sings the first lines of this song while doing housework.
This song is heard played on a 19.5/8-inch upright Polyphon musical box as Katie Johnson is walking to/away from the police station at the start/end of the 1955 Alec Guinness film The Ladykillers.
The Last Rose of Summer was also the title (later revised as Dying of Paradise) of a three-hour science fiction production written by Stephen Gallagher in 1977–78 for Piccadilly Radio.[citation needed]
In the 2000 Thaiwestern filmTears of the Black Tiger (Thai: ฟ้าทะลายโจร, or Fa Thalai Chon), a translated version of the song called "Kamsuanjan" ("The Moon Lament") was used as the closing song concurrent with the tragic ending of the film.
The song was used in the 2008 video game Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep as the theme of the Depths area of the Zahhab Region. It is also playable on the jukebox that the player can purchase in-game.
In the 16th (final) episode of the 6th season (2009) of the UK Channel 4 television series Shameless, the song was sung by Jamie Maguire (played by Aaron McCusker) at the funeral of his sister Mandy Maguire (Samantha Siddall).
The song was featured in FOX TV series,"The Chicago Code" Season 1 Episode 2, "Hog Butcher" (February 2011). This traditional Irish song was sung by Jason Bayle, as the uniformed officer during the memorial service of fallen Chicago police officer Antonio Betz.
In Rooster Teeth Productions' RWBY web series, the name of Summer Rose is a direct reference to the poem. The thirteenth line, "Thus Kindly I Scatter", is used as the epitaph on her gravestone in the trailer "Red" and episodes one and twelve of the third season (2015).[13]
In the Austenland (film) (2013), the character of Lady Amelia Heartwright plays a verse of the song while at the pianforte, in an affected and not particularly skilled manner.
In the Hangar 13 game Mafia III (2016), one of the main characters, Thomas Burke, can be heard singing this song with sorrow.
In the season 9 premiere of The Walking Dead, Hilltop resident Alden (played by Callan McAuliffe) sang a rendition of The Last Rose of Summer at the funeral of the blacksmith's son Ken.[16]
^For a description and listing of more than 200 such pieces, see Axel Klein: "'All her lovely companions are faded and gone' – How The Last Rose of Summer Became Europe's Favourite Irish Melody" and its appendix, "Utilisations of 'The Last Rose of Summer', respectively 'The Groves of Blarney', by European Composers in the Nineteenth Century, in Chronological Order", in: Sarah McCleave & Brian Caraher (eds.): Thomas Moore and Romantic Inspiration. Poetry, Music, and Politics (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 128–145 & 231–253; ISBN9781138281479 (hardback), ISBN9781315271132 (e-book).
^Buck, Dudley (1877). The Last Rose of Summer(PDF). New York: G. Schirmer. Retrieved 5 August 2023.
