for us. We must take full advantage of youth while we have it so that we will not "forever tarry," and in our old age wish we had done things we didn't then have the courage to do.

Herrick also shows the passing of time using the symbols of flowers such as roses and of the sun. He writes that flowers look lovely for a short time and then die, just as we humans are attractive in our youth and then grow old and die.

The sun gives the light of a new day, but the higher it gets and the more light it sheds, the closer it is to setting again, giving way to the darkness of night. We enter the brightness of our lives in our youth, but the older we get, the closer is the inevitable approach of death.

Rosebuds are used as a symbol of youth and beauty. They are an apt symbol, because they are both lovely and fleeting, as youth is. If you delay getting out into your garden and clipping your roses, even for a few days, they may well be past their prime. This symbol provides a visual image that reinforces the urgency of the poem's theme of carpe diem or seize the day. Now is all we have got, so we had better seize our pleasures now.

Another symbol that reinforces the carpe diem theme is the sun. This "glorious lamp of heaven" is beautiful and brilliant, but it is personified as running a race that will soon be done. The sun is a symbol of the rapidity with which time passes. Just as the sun sets before we know, so our lives are very quickly over. Once again, this is used to emphasize the argument or point that if we want to do something we need to do it now.

These are very conventional symbols, but their use makes the point of the poem crystal clear.

This poem, made even more modernly famous by the film "Dead Poet's Society," essentially speaks the overarching message:Carpe Diem, or "seize the day."

The most obvious symbol in this poem is the rosebud, and it holds many complimentary meanings.  First, rosebuds represent youth and beauty.  Because they bloom in spring, they represent new life, and because they die within one season, they represent a short life.  Gathering rosebuds "while ye may" suggests that the time frame for seizing an opportunity is short.

But in this poem, with the word "virgins" in the title, rosebuds are clearly also a sexual symbol.  Not only do they represent life, but they represent love and physical sensuality.  Though the deeper meaning here is to seize opportunity while you are young, the speaker is clearly appealing to, and drawing comparisons to, the power of sexuality and sexual urge in young people.  The fact is, such urges are strongest for a very limited time in the spectrum of life.  The rosebud here presents both an innocent but also a very sexual image.  If the reader were to seize opportunity with the same desire that he seizes sexual pleasure (or could), the message is that he will not be disappointed before he dies.

The poem is divided into four stanzas, each with four lines. A stanza with four lines is called a quatrain. The poem is structured so that the first two quatrains describe the problem, and the next two quatrains offer the solution. The problem is that we only have a finite amount of time on this earth. This is established in the first stanza with the reference to "Old Time . . . still a-flying" and is emphasized in the second stanza with the image of the "setting" sun. The solution offered in the second half of the poem is to "use your time . . . while ye may," or, in other words, to make the most of your time while you can. This message places the poem in the carpe diem (Latin for "seize the day") genre of poetry.

As regards the form of the poem, the first three stanzas are written in the third person perspective, but in the fourth, Herrick switches to the second person direct address, encouraging the reader to "use your time" and warning them that otherwise "you may forever tarry." By switching to the second person perspective in the final stanza, Herrick finishes the poem with a greater sense of urgency. The message becomes personal and more immediate.

Let's start with the easy stuff. The poem is comprised of four quatrains. That means the poem is made of four different stanzas that each have four lines apiece. Rhyme scheme is next. The rhyme scheme of each stanza is ABAB. This means that lines 1 and 3 rhyme with each other, and lines 2 and 4 rhyme with each other. As for the rhythm and meter, that's not quite so straight forward. Most of the poem is written in the iambic foot. An iambic foot contains an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. I'll use bold to indicate the stressed syllables.

And this | same flower | that smiles | to-day

The first line of the poem is an example of how all of the lines are not made up of all iambs. The first foot is a trochee, and that means the stressed syllable comes first.

Gath-er | ye rose|-buds while | ye may.

Notice how both of the examples have four rhythmic feet. This is called tetrameter. The odd numbered lines are all iambic tetrameter. The even numbered lines are one syllable short. This is called catalexis and results in the even numbered lines of this poem being catalectic lines of poetry. I'll use line 2 as an example.

Old time| is still | a-fly|-ing

This poem also belongs to a category of poetry which was renowned in this era called "Carpe Diem," or Sieze the Day poetry. The general message was to hurry up do something--live life to the fullest now because we don't know what will happen tomorrow.

Herrick's message is, "ladies, while you are still young and beautiful, hurry and find a husband. If you wait to long, you will dry up and become ugly and no one will want you."

Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" and Donne's "The Flea" also belong to the Carpe Diem faction of poetry.

“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” is composed of four stanzas, each consisting of four lines of verse. Each stanza is composed of a single sentence. The poem employs end rhymes, the rhyming pattern being abab, cdcd, efef, ghgh.

He also uses the trochaic foot, which is a unit of two syllables with the first syllable stressed, and the second unstressed. The first line should read like this:
ther / ye rose / buds while / ye may.

The best of the four suggested answers here is that in "To The Virgins, to Make Much of Time," Robert Herrick joyfully describes staying young. Herrick does also write about growing old in the poem, but his attitude is not joyful.

While the first option is the best of the four answers suggested, it is not quite correct. In the first place, one might argue that Herrick's tone is not exactly joyful. This poem belongs to a genre sometimes called the "carpe diem" poem, in which the addressee is exhorted to make the most of youth, since it will not last long. The tone is one of joy and sorrow mixed, since the message is that the joys of youth will soon be over.

The second, related point is that Herrick is not talking about staying young, but about being young. Any "carpe diem" poem carries the message that one does not stay young for very long, which is why it is so important to enjoy life while you can. The initial images of flowers and sunlight in the first two stanzas emphasize the point that both youth and life are transient.