Red Rose

Lyricist. H. Pearl Humphry

Publisher. Chappell & Co.

Date. 1907

Key/Range. F Major (d' -- f")

COMMENTARY

H. Pearl Humphry was a performer in British musical comedies who also was a poet and an essayist. Her lyric was written within a long tradition of poems in English about the rose that includes well-known examples from William Blake, Robert Burns, Christina Rossetti, and Emily Dickenson. While “Red Rose” is not crafted with the same intensity of language as these other poems, Humphry’s use of personification to pose questions to the flower is a typical conceit, as is the use of the poetic image to convey the idea of carpe diem. Tours uses a modulation from F Major to A Minor (iii) effectively at the recapitulation to illustrate how the “little brown rose” has died. He returns quickly to the tonic and elaborates the melody with a sequence on the line that conveys hope in the moral that facing the end of life with dignity allows you to “glow” even in death. The simplicity and charm of his melody not only matches the delicacy of the poetic imagery, but it makes this song sit quite comfortably in the voice.