So We'll Go No More a Roving: Analysis

So we’ll go no more a roving is a poem about having to change your ways, and saying goodbye to a specific way of living. The narrator realises his rundown physical and spiritual state, due to his multiple nights consisting of drinking and indulging in affairs. He expresses that love is an irresistible force, but that it cannot last forever. The poem consists of 12 verses divided into 3 stanzas, making each stanza a quatrain. As is typical for quatrains, the poem is written in cross-rhyme. Most of the rhymes are masculine (“night”-“bright”, “soon”-“moon”), with the only exception being “roving”-“loving”. The repetition of “roving” and “loving”, suggests that these two words are central to the theme of the poem. The use of masculine rhymes as well as phallic imagery (“sword”), suggests to the reader that the narrator is male.
From the first stanza, we can infer that the narrator does not believe that the night is for sleeping. His use of the “moon” as a symbol for light, suggests that he believes that there is no difference between day and night. This same idea is reinforced in the last sentence of the poem. His spirit wishes to continuously waste no time of his life and keep indulging in his nightly activities.
By the second stanza it is made clear that his body can no longer keep up with his spirit, and he needs to cease his frivolous behavior. The verse “For the sword outwears its sheath” can be interpreted in two distinct ways. The sword may have a phallic allusion, while the sheath is a symbol of a female. Else the “sword” may represent his strong fighting spirit or conscience, while the “sheath” is what contains and holds back his spirit; his aging body being worn down. With the verses “the heart must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest”, he acknowledges that he has lived beyond his physical abilities and must slow down.
The narrator makes use of both assonance and sibilance. His slow ‘O’ sounds (“So, we’ll go no more a roving”) and the letter ‘S’ (“the sword outwears its sheath”) gives the poem a moaning melancholic quality. The slight use of anaphora in the second stanza (verse 6, 7 and 8), also gives the poem a dragging feel, suggesting that though he is accepting the need for change he is dreading it too. By the last stanza, he is acknowledging that he cannot continue his lavish nocturnal life “by the light of the moon”, and must join life in the daylight. Though “the day returns too soon”, it does also symbolize the beginning of something new. It may not be a welcoming change, but perhaps a necessary one.