Song speaks of the narrator commanding a rose to go deliver a message of the urgency of his love to his love; "Go, lovely rose!" The rose is a symbol of love and beauty. In this case, in the first stanza, the narrator is telling his girl how beautiful he thinks she is; "When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be."

In the second stanza, he's asking the rose to tell her that she should not "shun to have her graces spied" as her beauty should not be hidden anymore. He thinks that her beauty should be praised and admired or it will fade without fulfilling its purpose; "where no man abide, Thou must have uncommended died."

In the third stanza, he is telling her that there is no worth in hiding her beauty; "Small is the worth Of beauty from the...