Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
Gathering flowers can be seen as a metaphor for sex or wooing here, for plucking the flower and enjoying it while it’s still in the bloom of youth. The tautness of the quatrain (i.e. four-line verse or stanza) is reinforced by the rhyme, both at the end of the lines (may/today, flying/dying) and within the lines (while/smiles, still/will). This lends the lines a 
purposeful and decisive feel: make no mistake, the poet says, even your youth will fade, the flower will wither, and – eventually – die. The internal rhymes are delicately balanced, so that while and smiles come at the same point in the first and third lines respectively (the sixth syllable in the line) and still and willcome at the same point in the second and fourth lines (the fourth syllable in each case). Not only do these pairs of words rhyme internally with each other, but they also cross over and echo the other pair of words: while and will, smiles and still. This is, technically speaking, highly efficient and tightly constructed verse – and this is important because the poet wants to convince us of the certainty of what he says. Note how ‘may’ becomes ‘will’.
purposeful and decisive feel: make no mistake, the poet says, even your youth will fade, the flower will wither, and – eventually – die. The internal rhymes are delicately balanced, so that while and smiles come at the same point in the first and third lines respectively (the sixth syllable in the line) and still and willcome at the same point in the second and fourth lines (the fourth syllable in each case). Not only do these pairs of words rhyme internally with each other, but they also cross over and echo the other pair of words: while and will, smiles and still. This is, technically speaking, highly efficient and tightly constructed verse – and this is important because the poet wants to convince us of the certainty of what he says. Note how ‘may’ becomes ‘will’.
The other three stanzas of the poem extend the central sentiment so pithily and perfectly expressed in that opening stanza. They are less remarkable than the first verse, but they do display a similar use of repetition of contrasts and opposites: higher/sooner/nearer in the second stanza, best/first/worst in the third (leaving that missing complement, last, unspoken but lurking ominously behind the lines), and time/prime (not simple opposites, though it is the passing of time which will lead to the passing of one’s prime) in the final stanza.
‘To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time’ is, in the last analysis, a carefully constructed poem expressing a fairly straightforward sentiment. It says what it wants to say with extraordinary technical proficiency, yet without sacrificing the simplicity of its central message.
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