The Rose of Rouen would northern lords over-run the south, but more, that "they would then live in it and take what they needed including wives and daughters." This is the fate, says the poem, that Edward of York saved England from. Like other political poetry of the period, it is careful to identify its protagonists by their cognizances rather than naming them: Edward, of course, is a white rose, his father Richard of York, Duke of York, is a falcon and fetterlock, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick a ragged staff, his uncle William Neville, Lord Fauconberg a fish hook, and John Mowbray, Duke
To the Rose upon the Rood of Time spiritual or the divine: Yeats poses the rose as a starting point for spiritual regeneration, and surrounds this symbol with the beautiful lyricism, euphony, rhyme and meter which characterizes his early poetry. The repeated phrase “come near” has the feel of an incantation: the rose’s proximity, so close, and yet leaving a space large enough for “the rose-breath to fill,” contributes to the feeling of being on the verge of the divine (line 14). The lack of complete and utter communion with the rose gives the poem an air of sweet suffering that seems necessary in order to achieve the