"gather you" appears to be an anastrophic imperative, similar to a french construction like gather-you. i don't believe the intended meaning of the line was to tell us to hoard or gather the rosebuds that already belong to us, as would be the translation of "gather your rosebuds", but rather a suggestion that we go out and gather these metaphorical rosebuds from outside sources. hrm, i'm having trouble expressing my thoughts here, but it makes perfect sense to me
and to me, cara. But I also think it’s even more elaborate than you allow, tsuwm. Herrick was using a deliberate pun in his use of ‘may’: both the transitive verb of permissive ‘may’, and the intransitive verb of ‘to may’, which meant gathering flowers and woodland garlands for the may ceremonies (which I think was, er, rooted in early pagan celebration of the conquest of winter – the English tradition includes the May Queen, the Maypole, and the Mayfair which gave its name to a region of London). There was probably also a mildly scabrous allusion to 'gathering the buds' of ‘may’ which was also a synonym for maid or the virgin of the addressees of its anastrophic form…. back to fertility rites!
