Edmund Waller (1606–1687) Go, Lovely Rose! LINKS No links found. BIOGRAPHY Edmund Waller (1606–1687) Born in Hertfordshire, England, Waller was privately instructed as a young child, then sent to Eton and Cambridge. He served for several years as a member of Parliament, first as an opponent of the crown and later as a Royalist. His advocacy of the Royalist cause and his attempts to moderate between the crown and the Puritans in an increasingly revolutionary period led to his imprisonment and exile. He made his peace with Cromwell and returned to England in 1651. When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Waller regained his seat in Parliament. Waller was one of the earliest poets to use the heroic couplet, a form that was to dominate English poetry for over a century.