Love Armed Poem

To be scorned in love is something that most everyone will face. There are those that place blame on the lover, and then there are those that place blame on love itself. The narrator of Love Armed places the blame on both. The verse is written for a lover that does not reciprocate the narrator’s affections. The title produces an image before the poem has even started. Love Armed, a larger-than-life figure sits, surrounded by weapons as though to protect itself from the pain and heartbreak that love can cause. It is a well-known fact that love giveth and love taketh away. To give effect to what love seizes from those who feel it, Love has been personified. The phrase ‘Fantastic Triumph’ implies that Love takes great pleasure in the suffering he causes those under his reign. Love is not someone to be admired, for he is a sadistic ruler of those who wish to feel his gentle caress. Instead, he creates ‘Fresh pains’ for those ‘Bleeding Hearts’. The term ‘Bleeding Hearts’ is a potentially perplexing
Love is often described as blind or selfish and it seems as though Love obtains other characteristics through those around himself. Love is proud and cruel, because the narrator’s lover is proud and cruel. In contrast, Love takes ‘sighs and tears’ from the narrator, because at this point, it is all she has left to offer. She is still mourning the loss of her lover, or perhaps just the relationship, but it is made clear that the lover is not. Humanity raises Love up to the level of a god. Love is the be-all, end-all of life, it is the ultimate goal, it is the closest thing we have to magic. We talk of true love, how a single kiss can break any curse. The narrator has come to the realisation that this isn’t the case. The winners of life are those who escape love, unscathed. The lover has won, because she is the only one who is broken