Love drew him to a stop. In a way, that’s what I think the poet is trying to do. He’s trying to draw a picture of the uncomfortable feelings etc. I also think he’s done a good job.
In the second stanza, it explains what happened after he looked away. He described it as he could not see anything, as the love had covered his eyes. He also explains how the blood suddenly rushes back into his face.
“And then my blood rushed to my face and I took my sight away. The trees and bushed round the place seemed midnight at noonday.”
In the second half of the second stanza, he talks of the joy he experienced from this sudden rush of love. He makes it that his heart began to sing.
“I could not see a single thing, words from my heart did start; they spoke as chords do from the string and blood burnt around my heart.”
In the last stanza, he talks about how he left his heart with her on that last day, and it never returned.
“Amen” can be compared to “First Love” as more confusing and not as romantic. It is written in a different style, with different wording.
Each verse starts with a question: “It is over. What is over?” “It is finished. What is finished?” “It suffices. What suffices?”
It is hard to say whether this poem is about love itself, or her love for something, or even a love that she’s lost.
Reading the first stanza three times made me realise the poem is about a new beginning, a new start.
“Now the sheaves are gathered newly, now the wheat is garnered duly.”
I think that maybe she has stopped loving someone or something. She didn’t want to as the poem goes on to say will it stay that way? Will the love stay un-touched and un-mended?
“Was the fallow field left unsown? Will these buds be always unblown?”
At the end, however, it seems as if the poet has a more positive prospect. It says,
“Roses make the bramble slightly, and the quickening sun shine brightly, and the latter wind blow lightly.”
Compared to “First Love”, it starts out sounding sad, but ends on a positive note. It is written in a sort of question and answer method.
“Porphyria’s lover” is a fantastically well written poem. It captures a love people don’t often write about: obsessive love. It starts as a romantic poem of a beautiful woman in a mans embrace, until he strangles her.
It sounds very horrible, and not a nice poem at all: but looking at it from my point of view, I think the man was so happy at that moment, he never wanted the moment to end. It was a moment to remember, and he didn’t want it to empty from his memory.
“A sudden thought of one so pale for love of her, and all in vain: So, she was come through wind and rain be sure I looked up at her eyes happy and proud.”
His love was so strong, he was obsessed with her, he never wanted his relationship with her to end. He dreamt of her, thought of her, fantasised about her.
“I found a thing to do, and all her hair in one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her. No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain.”
He convinces himself that she felt no pain; he loves her, and does not want to think that he has done a bad thing. He only wanted to spend as long as he could with her, as they were, forever. In his obsession he does not realise he cannot be with her forever that way, as she would rot.
“Her darling one wish would be heard, and thus we sit together now, and all night long we have not stirred and yet God has not said a word!”
This poem is touching more so than “First Love” and “Amen” as it is written in an unexpected manner, and also the sweet ignorance of the poor lover.
Lisa Wildman
10J
