This coyness, Lady, were no crime.”
It uses irregular sentence length; the writer uses a fundamental combination of strong ideals and complex intellectual ideas to bring across his strong feeling, very similar to Carol Ann Duffy’s poem
Also, the poem is a fairly typical ‘carpe diem” poem, in which the speaker tells his beloved that they should “seize the day” and have sex now instead of waiting until they are married. Whereas, in “Valentine” they probably had sex before.
Throughout most of the poem, the rhyme scheme follows a simple couplet pattern (AA, BB and so on), two couplets use slant or irregular rhyme, not simply to vary the monotonous pattern but to reinforce the poems theme by not making it repetitive. Lines 23 and 24 use the approximate rhyme ‘lie/eternity”- “try/virginity”. The first couplet suggests that that the future that lies before us is no way desirable: “desert of vast eternity” imply a intimidating rather than encouraging future state. The irregularity of rhyme draws us back to the uneven but human irregularities of life in the present. The irregular rhyme that follows echoes the same pattern and emphasizes the previous image with a more grisly example: “try” rhymes exactly with ‘lie” just as “virginity” rhymes exactly with “eternity”.
The title of the second poem “Valentine” written by Carol Ann Duffy is very misleading. One would expect to read about romantic love, instead she writes about pessimistic love. She has obviously been hurt in previous relationships. Given your lover an onion is not being realistic, think about it. Would you give your lover an “onion” as a Valentines gift?
The speaker of the poem offers her lover an onion as a Valentine gift. This is clearly not a conventional gift like “satin hearts” or “red roses” nevertheless she gives an onion because it represents her love in many different ways such as the layers of the onion is equivalent to the layers of her relationship. She continues through the poem comparing different characteristics of the onion to different characteristics of her love. The poem is universal: it could be any lover to any beloved as there is no indication of the sex of either the “I” or the “you” whereas “To His Coy Mistress” is very gender specific.
The structure of this poem is the way in which a poet chooses to set the poem out, this includes rhyme schemes, rhythm patterns, word or sentence and the way the lines are laid out. Duffy wants the receiver of her onion to know that she has chosen it because she feels that it is the best and most genuine declaration of her love. Duffy rejects she traditional symbols of her love because she feels that they have become meaningless. The “satin hearts”, “red roses’ and “cute cards” are not acceptable to Duffy because each has ceased to be original; they are stereotypical gifts which have been sent so many times that they have become superficial and insignificant. Harsh alliteration is used to emphasize the negative ideas: “cute cards” and “red roses”.
The use of the word “Here” makes the reader feel that the poet is in control. She continues with the extended metaphor, “it will blind you with tears”. Not only will the onion make your eyes water, the pain caused by a loved one has the same effect. “I am trying to be truthful.” - Alliteration, the repetition of the ‘t’ sound gives it the feeling of sincerity.
“Of Humber would complain, I would
Love you ten years before the flood:
And you should, if you please refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.”
This states that he would not complain about waiting to reveal his love and would even wait until the conversion of the Jews implying in a very anti-Semitic way, that this would never happen. In this section, he uses the values of ten years to imply how long he would wait to reveal his love. The use of numbers is continental for the rest of this section.
“Two hundred to adore each breast” and
“But thirty thousand to the rest”
Those the two quotations are showing how he would not care how long he would wait to reveal his love as he could spend forever gazing upon his lover’s beauty.
The symbolism of the poem conveys on urgency to act now before the opportunity to live our lives to their maximum capacity runs out.
Out of the two poems I thought ‘Valentine’ was more effective. I also enjoyed it more than ‘To his coy mistress’. This was because of the unusual layout and content of the poem. One of the main features I enjoyed and liked about ‘Valentine’ is its title. Simply as it is misleading, giving it hidden qualities. As you wouldn’t imagine a poem called ‘Valentine, to be about an onion. The directness and shortness appealed to me, especially over the long ‘To his coy mistress’. Thus all considered I prefer ‘Valentine’. All in all both of these poems illustrate love in an uncanny and bizarre way. The lead us to ask the question: ‘What is love?’ especially as two loved based poems have such dissimilar content and context but yet are both to do with ‘love’.
