The Last Rose of Summer (Martha)

Thomas Moore was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist. Widely regarded in his lifetime as Ireland's "national bard", his fame and reputation rested primarily on the popularity of his Irish Melodies. In these, Moore set to old Irish tunes verses that spoke to a narrative of Irish dispossession, loss, and resistance. In his romantic work Lalla Rookh (1817), in which these same themes are explored in an elaborate orientalist allegory, Moore achieved wider critical recognition and popularity. Translated into several languages, and adapted and arranged for musical performance by, among others, Robert Schumann, the chivalric verse-narrative established Moore as one of the leading exemplars of European romanticism.