Analysis Of To The Rose Upon The Rood Of Time

Another of the earliest poems of William Yeats is “To The Rose Upon the Rood of Time”, published by the poet in 1893, and has its focus on, then again, mythology and folklore as a way to convey longing for the past. The poem focuses on a narrator, presumably Yeats himself, and his detachment and dispassion for contemporary life, resulting in his nostalgic longing for the past and to be part of the Irish ancient legends – to transcend the life of the ordinary man.
The red rose is used by Yeats as a nationalist symbol to represent a mythological Ireland, which shows Yeats’ sense of nationalism that only grew over the years. The poem starts with: “Red rose, proud rose, sad Rose of all my days!”. Here “all my days” gives the impression that the …show more content…
The next two lines have a huge importance: “Come near; I would, before my time to go,/ Sing of old Eire and the ancient ways”. In here we have again the idea that if the narrator lets himself to be totally obsessed with the rose and its assurance of rich Irish history, he will get to detached from humankind that he will even die before his time so that he will “learn to chaunt a tongue men do not know”.
In the last line Yeats writes, like in the first line of the poem, “sad Rose of all my days” but here it has a different significance that earlier in the poem. Now the reader is conscious of the narrator’s struggle to balance his desire to submerge himself into the red rose and the consequences that can come out of it, thus the “sad”.
Moreover, it is also relevant to refer that the “red rose” from the poem may also be referring to Maud Gonne, Yeats’ unrequited love, whose story has many parallels with Yeats’ relationship with Old England, the spiritual world. Both the red rose and his lover personify an “Eternal