The Last Rose of Summer
The last rose of summer
sung by Adelina Patti in 1906
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Rosa 'Old Blush'

The Last Rose of Summer is a poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. He wrote it in 1805, while staying at Jenkinstown Park 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 "Aislean an Oigfear", 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 hÁmsaigh) 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 century.

Musical settings

Classical

There are innumerable arrangements and sets of "theme and variations" during the 19th century. The following is a selection only.

Literary allusions

This poem is mentioned in Jules Verne's novel The Vanished Diamond (aka. The Southern Star), and by Wilkie Collins in The Moonstone (Sergeant Cuff whistles the tune frequently).

The song is mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses.[4] It is also referred to, disdainfully, in George Eliot's Middlemarch.

Song also mentioned by Betty Smith in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"

Film, television and radio

A British silent movie of The Last Rose of Summer made in 1920 stars Owen Nares and Daisy Burrell.[5]

Deanna Durbin sings the song in the 1939 film, Three Smart Girls Grow Up.[6]

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 anything 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).

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.

In the 1983-1984 Japanese TV drama Oshin, broadcast on NHK, the melody is played by characters with Harmonica.

In the 1995 film An Awfully Big Adventure, the song is used as P.L. O'Hara's theme music and is a recurrent musical motif in the film's score.

The Smashing Pumpkins' song "Speed Kills" references this operetta. Smashing Pumpkins' frontman Billy Corgan's mother's name was Martha.

In the 16th (final) episode of the 6th season of the UK Channel 4 television show 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 Ric Burns' documentary series, New York: A Documentary Film, broadcast on PBS in the USA.

February 2011, the song was featured in FOX TV series,"The Chicago Code" Season 1 Episode 2, "Hog Butcher". This traditional Irish song was sung by Jason Bayle, as the uniformed officer during the memorial service of fallen Chicago police officer Antonio Betz.

A 1977 3 hr. Science Fiction Piccadilly Radio production written by Stephen Gallagher and also transmitted on other UK independent radio stations.

In the 2000 Thai western film Tears of the Black Tiger (Thai: ฟ้าทะลายโจร, or Fa Thalai Chon), translated version of the song called "Kamsuanjan" ("The Moon Lament") was used as the closing song concurrent with the tragic ending of the film.

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. [7]

Games

The song was used in the 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 Hangar 13 game, Mafia 3, the character, Burke can be heard singing this song with sorrow.

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 rosebud 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?

Notes

  1. ↑ http://www.garden.ie/article.aspx?id=979
  2. ↑ Walton's, editors (1993). Ireland - The Songs Book 4.
  3. ↑ Edward Bunting, A General Collection of the Ancient Irish Music (1796)
  4. ↑ "Ulysses by James Joyce: The Last Rose of Summer, accessed 29 June 2009
  5. ↑ Kenton Bamford, Distorted images: British national identity and film in the 1920s (1999), p. 8
  6. ↑ "Three Smart Girls Grow Up". Deanna Durbin Devotees. Retrieved 9 July 2013.
  7. ↑ http://roosterteeth.com/episode/rwby-season-3-chapter-1

Audio clips

Works related to The Last Rose of Summer at Wikisource

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