Ray Charles was right: "The night time is the right time to be with the one you love." That's what the speaker of "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" tells us, but he doesn't make it easy for us to figure out just what he means by love. Does he mean the night was made so great that he can't help loving it, or does he mean the night is a time for loving people—for chasing girls, having sex, making love, that sort of thing? It's probably some combination of both. And, by saying he goes roving in the night, and the night was made for love, he's also kind of saying he will love no more. Hmm, why not? Maybe he finally realizes that there are more important things to do.
Questions About Love
- If the speaker is in love, do we have any idea with whom he might be in love? The night? A girl? Roving? How do you know?
- What is the effect of rhyming loving and roving in the poem?
- What does the speaker mean by the word "loving," really?
- Why do you think the speaker says that the night is the time for roving and loving to take place?
Chew on This
Sounds weird, but loving can be a bad thing. The speaker still feels it, but he associates it with roving, and hence with something he needs to stop doing.
Love is associated with the night, and with lunacy (literally: moon, or luna, madness). In the first stanza, the speaker mentions love and the moon in the same breath to remind us of that.