Love is a powerful four letter word that sets no boundaries. The intensity is outpouring even when there is pain and tears, love is still waiting at the end of the road to be reaped. This is what the poem of Elizabeth Browning is all about. It speaks of everlasting love and how love can last a lifetime and can even conquer death.
“How do I love thee” is a sonnet of 14 lines that is all about love. It shows the expression of love that a woman has for a man. This love is so deep and eternal that it reaches to a spiritual level and captures the heart of the audience. The object of the poem is that the speaker is offering true love to a man, and she is proud to give it to him.
“Let me count the ways” is the speaker’s way of showing love in a lot of many ways. This gives a clear picture of a love that binds people together and the affection between a man and a woman. The tenth line, “in my old grief’s, and with my childhood’s faith,” points out that love is powerful.
It has the power to restore the speaker’s faith, and it can heal all the emotional wounds of her childhood days. The last line states, “I shall but love thee better after death,” signifies that her love will continue even after death. Furthermore, she can visualize the imagery of love as being immortal.
The speaker is trying to convey that love is all that she has. The love that she devotes to the man is full and whole and nobody can take it away from her. The speaker uses words like faith, praise, saints and grace in expressing her love. These words give a religious atmosphere in the poem.
Love is also the theme of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” but this poem also put emphasis on lust and the importance of time. The poem tells us to seize every inch of opportunity that will come because life is too short for playing games.
“To Coy His Mistress” is a poem of 46 lines that has iambic tetrameter in style with a rhyming couplet. This is a metaphysical poem that speaks about life and the sexual pleasures of a man. The woman is the object of this poem and the admiration of an older man to a younger woman is so intense.
“Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side” is a line that symbolizes passion and the sexual desires of a woman. ” My vegetable love should grow,” is a line from the poem that compares love to a plant. It will grow in the right time until it develops into something deep and becomes an object of longing.
The speaker uses time to flatter the woman by stating this line “And the last age would show your heart” that even if it takes years, the speaker’s admiration for the woman is still there.
The speaker draws the audience attention with this line “Thorough the iron gates of life” as this line informs the audience that the woman’s virginity is a treasure and it needs a chastity belt to guard it. The speaker is passionate and wants to awaken the woman’s earthly desires while stating this line “and now like amorous birds of prey rather at once our time devour.”
“To Coy His Mistress” is a poem of three stanzas and each stanza signifies the meaning of the poem. The first stanza speaks about the reason why a man wants to court a woman.
The lines in the first stanza signify the strong attraction of the speaker to the woman and the use of imagery in a positive way. However, the second stanza dispels the idea of a love that cannot survive throughout time because the speaker is only a human being. However, the real message of the poem is at the last stanza. The reader uses carpe diem which means to seize the day.
This part shows the urgency of persuading a woman to love a man. It speaks of the importance of time. Both poems display the attitudes we have when referring to love. It describes the connection between a man and a woman and the physical exploration of their love for each other.
“How can I love thee” displays the great love of a woman to a man in a spiritual way. This is a love that is sensitive and demanding. Its depth is passionate and express in a subtle and quiet way. The poem “To His Coy Mistress” shows love in another aspect as the speaker respects and admires the woman’s body. It is a love that involves obsessive attraction and lust towards the opposite sex.
In “How can I love thee” the speaker intends to show a love that is immaculate in nature, by stating this line, “I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.”
The lines suggest that for the speaker, selflessness is the true essence of love. In “To His Coy Mistress” this line “through the iron gates of life” signifies that a woman has to treasure her virginity in the hope of being immaculately clean when she decides to settle down.
“To His Coy Mistress” sees life and love in a sense of urgency and the earthly desire of the speaker is the main point of the poem. In “How I Love Thee,” the speaker considers love as her life that is not limited to a physical longing, but a love that is genuine. “How I love thee” is set to give the audience a heartwarming spell of real love that goes beyond the earthly desires of man.
The real essence of love starts from within, it is when one starts to consider other people’s interest as if it is their own and this love can be bestowed by a man to woman or vice versa.