In my novel The Echoes of Love, Venetia is a woman who has been burned badly by love, and is consequently afraid to trust her heart to the attentive and attractive Paolo. Lost and distressed, she seeks out the guidance of a wise elder, Chinese man Ping Lü, who is a student of the Confucius school of thinking. Ping Lü tells her:

‘Thomas Moore, a poet from your country said, “the heart that is early awake to the flowers, is always the first to be touched by the thorns.” And we have a similar Chinese proverb: “the rose has thorns only for those who would gather it.” My child, you found love at an early age. You had youth, beauty and love. You were on top of the world, knee-deep in roses … then … the thorns got you, didn’t they? And scratched you badly. But though you may not think it now, they didn’t do you any lasting damage, the wounds are healing now, and you can still appreciate the flowers, yes?’

I have always loved the quote from Thomas Moore. How many of us experienced the flush and intensity of young love, followed by the sharp agony of loss? And yet, when we look back from a place of calm, though we remember the pain, we can be nothing but glad that we made our heart ‘awake to the flowers’.

Do you know the works of Thomas Moore? He was an 18th-century Irish poet and composer, an ardent Irish nationalist, and friend to poets Byron and Shelley. His most influential work was a ten-volume collection entitled Irish Melodies. Each of the 130 songs was composed by Moore with classical composer Sir John Stevenson and accompanied by lyrics in the form of Moore’s poems. Irish Melodies was hugely popular, earning Moore widespread respect (and a good deal of money) and effectively popularising Irish music around the world.

Of the Irish Melodies, one of the most famous is ‘The Last Rose of Summer’:

The poem from which I quote in The Echoes of Love is entitled ‘Oh! Think Not My Spirits Are Always as Light’. It is not without the melancholic air of ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, but is heartier and more vivid. When I read it I imagine Moore singing it in a traditional Irish pub with his friends, having had a pint too many and succumbed, momentarily, to the blues, and then given himself a shake and reminded himself of what sustains us all in life: ‘the sunshine of love’ and the ‘moonlight of friendship’.

Oh! think not my spirits are always as light,
And as free from a pang as they seem to you now,
Nor expect that the heart beaming smile of tonight,
Will return with tomorrow to brighten my brow.
No; life is a waste of wearisome hours
Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns;
And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers,
Is always the first to be touch’d by the thorns.
But send round the bowl, and be happy a while,
May we never meet worse, in our pilgrimage here,
Than the tear that enjoyment may gild with a smile,
And the smile that compassion can turn to a tear.

The thread of our life would be dark, Heaven knows!
If it were not with friendship and love intertwin’d;
And I care not how soon I may sink to repose,
When these blessings shall cease to be dear to my mind.
But they who have lov’d the fondest, the purest,
Too often have wept o’er the dream they believ’d;
And the heart that has slumber’d in friendship securest,
Is happy indeed if ’twas never deceiv’d.
But send round the bowl: while a relic of truth
Is in man or in woman, this pray’r shall be mine,
That the sunshine of love may illumine our youth,
And the moonlight of friendship console our decline.