Edmund Waller was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1605. He went to King’s College, Cambridge. Later he entered parliament and took an active part in the long parliament. In 1664 he was exiled on account of participating in royalist plots. He returned to England under Cromwell’s administration. He died at Beaconsfield in 1687. Waller’s poems were first published in 1645.

Go, lovely rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that’s young
And shuns to have her graces spied
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die, that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!