Love Poem Analysis

Many famous poets such as Robert Frost and William Shakespeare wrote about love whether it is tragic, cheerful, or indifferent. Poetry is a way to express emotions with art forms such as allusions, imagery, and personification. In this particular case, love is the common subject poets write about. Although love is most associated with happiness and lustful feelings, it can also fade away, be hurtful, and sacrificial. In “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” a nymph is a fairy, a character that exists through imagination and the shepherd is a poor and common worker. The nymph is telling the shepherd that if they “were young and truth in every shepherd’s tongue,” then the nymph is willing to be with him (Raleigh, lines 1-2, 720). The “truth in every shepherd’s tongue” refers to promises that the shepherd made (Raleigh, lines 2, 720). But as time goes by and “rivers rage and rocks grow cold,” that is when the perfect fantasy of a love life will start turning bad (Raleigh, line 6, 720). The love for each other will come to a rough patch, more arguments will be fought over, and the lovers will turn cold. Flowers will fade and die because it can only live for so long. The shepherd can sweet talk the nymph with a “honey tongue” but his “heart of gall” can mean bad intentions. Promised gifts such as “…gowns, …shoes, …beds of roses, …cap, …kirtle, and …posies” can soon be “…[broken], …[withered], and …forgotten” (Raleigh, lines 13-15, 721). In a perfect world, the gifts promised would never fade away, but in reality, the gifts will rot. Because the shepherd and nymph are so different, his “belt of straw and ivy buds” are no match for her “coral clasps and amber studs” (Raleigh, lines 17-18, 721). In the end, the nymph reassures him, like the beginning, if there were no limitations on their love, such as age and timing, then the nymph will “live with [the shepherd] and be [his love] (Raleigh, line 24, 721). The nymph is telling the shepherd that they cannot be

Cited: Brodsky, Joseph. “Love Song.” Literature for Composition 9th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnett and William Burto. Boston: Longman, 2011. 734. Print. Copeland. “You are My Sunshine.” N.d. CD. Raleigh, Sir Walter. “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd.” Literature for Composition 9th ed. Ed. Sylvan Barnett and William Burto. Boston: Longman, 2011. 720-721. Print.