In the second paragraph we begin to see the voice's personality shift. He goes from being the person that you could spend eternity with to a person whose time is coming to an end fast. He says that time's chariot is hurrying near. This line sets the standard for the next paragraph. This paragraph is a little faster, and you can see that the voice does not put as much thought into what he is saying. He then proceeds to tell her that they have eternity to be together, but her beauty will not last forever:
“I am not a girl, but if I were, that voice would have just lost me.”
He is starting to become less and less patient. He then murmurs that the worms are going to take her virginity, which is followed up by him saying that his lust is going to go to the grave with her. Now he is becoming pretty desperate. He has lost all his patience and any dignity that he had as a man.
In the third paragraph the voice has lost all hope. He is now on the verge of total desperation. I picture him in this paragraph down on his knees begging for her to go home with him. In this paragraph he tells her straight up that their attraction is going to end one day, so they need to do it right now. The voice has lost all patience at this point. He is ready to go somewhere. He ends the paragraph by saying that they cannot make the sun stand still, but they sure can make it run. This line wraps up the rest of the poem. In this line the voice tells her that the sun will be up soon, but we can make it run if we go now. Throughout this poem the voice loses his patience more and more, until eventually he is ready to go. His words go through a big change. They start out by being very compassionate at the beginning of the poem to being very anxious at the end. We do not know what happens at the end of this poem. The tone of this poem begins at a positive tone into a negative tone becoming angry with this woman.
A positive tone:
“For, lady, you deserve this state.”
A negative tone:
“And your quaint honour turn to dust,”
In conclusion, “To his Coy Mistress” is about a man trying to seduce a woman but once failed, he loses all nerve and temper and becomes angry and mad at this woman. The tone is varied in this poem from becoming a positive tone ascending to a negative tone.
The second poem that I shall explain is called “The Message”, it was written in the early seventeenth century. The poem talks about an argument with a man (which is the voice) and his/her partner. The poem is not just the voice shouting at his/her partner, it is both of the couple arguing. The poem rhymes each two lines:
“To mee,
on thee”.
Also it rhymes on the second paragraph:
“To make jestings,
Of protestings”
But the third line of every paragraph stops the rhyming. So this gives away that the voice is losing control:
“….on thee,
….such ill”
The third line stops the rhyming, but then after that line, the rhyming carries on. The halting of the rhyming stops on the third line of each paragraph. Also in the poem, the last line of each paragraph is a command from the voice to his/her partner:
“ Fit for no good sight, keep them still” ,
“Keepe it, for ‘tis none of mine” ,
“Or prove as false as thou art now.”
This is another reason that there are two people arguing, by the voice giving commands to another person. We get the idea that the voice is angry with his/her partner because he/she believes that his partner has had an affair behind the voice’s back.
“And false passions,”
The voice lies in the poem by saying that he loves her anyway although he doesn’t:
“Long have dwelt on thee:”
As the poem goes along, the voice starts to get angrier, rising throughout the poem. At the beginning of the poem, he was just angry; but from that he wants his/her partner to suffer with his anger rising:
“Yet send me back my hearts and eyes,
that I may know, and see thy lies,
And may laugh and joy, when thou
Art in anguish
And dost languish
For some one
That will none.”
This is meaning that he wants his partner to feel the pain that he felt when he found out about her having an affair. He wants her to suffer the way he did.
The voice gives a negative tone of voice throughout the poem, this is what mainly stands out in the poem.
In conclusion, the poem is about a negative and heart-broke man who wants revenge on his partner.
The third poem I shall be explaining is the poem “Remember”, which was written by Christina G. Rossetti. It was written early nineteenth century, or Victorian times. It is a sonnet, which is a poem, which contains 14 lines containing 10 syllables; all rhyming with the next line, but the rhyming in this poem is alike to the last poem; “The Message” because the rhyming is halted again. Showing that the poem is short shows that it is much shorter than the other two poems. Although this sonnet is short, it does contain an exceedingly amount information of love.
The halted rhyming is alike to “The Message”, because it has two rhyming pairs, then a non-rhyming line halts it:
“Gone away,
silent land
in the hand
turning stay.”
But then if looking at the first line and last line in this quotation, it shows that it rhymes every halted line with the next halted line. The pattern of the poem is like this quotation throughout the poem until the last six lines. But in the sonnet, line 9 rhymes with line 13 rather than line 12 (line 12 is which what line 9 should rhyme with in the sonnets rhyming scheme):
Line 9,
“Yet if you should forget me for a while”
Line 13,
“Better by far you should forget and smile”.
Also, line 12 rhymes with the ending line (line 14):
Line 12,
“A vestige of the thoughts that once I had”
Line 14,
“Than that you should remember me and be sad”.
These lines are showing that there are halted lines in the sonnet, but these rhyme with other halted lines giving halted rhyming pairs/couplets.
The sonnet begins with the voice telling her partner that she has death aside her giving an image of death:
“Remember me when I am gone,
Gone far away into the silent land”
It says the silent land, which is meaning to what she is when she is dead, which is silent, she will be silent for eternity. The voice then starts how it shall be without her in her lover’s life.
“When you can no more hold me by the hand.”
It is talking about loss of her physically. This image is carried on throughout the poem, it carries on talking about death but not actually saying the word ‘death’. Death is the main theme of this sonnet. The words that the voice says through the sonnet give a lot of feeling and emotion to them.
“ Only remember me”
and,
“For if the darkness and corruption leave,
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had.”
Throughout the poem, it mentions the words ‘Remember me’, this is to keep on reminding the reader that this sonnet is about death, and is also a reminder of the love that the voice and her lover had. It is also to mean that she does not want her partner to remember her in her negative ways, the voice wants her partner to remember her the way she was, not the way she wasn’t. The tone of this sonnet is made interesting by the rhyming scheme. The voice says the word ‘yet’, this is meaning that she has said what she wanted to say but there is something else, which has to be said.
The voice tries to tell her partner to carry on with life, and remember her with sadness.
“Than that you should remember me and be sad.”
This is what the sonnet finishes on, this last line saying to always remember and have sad emotion with that memory. The voice is honest with this line although she wishes for herself to not be away from her partner.
In conclusion, the poem “Remember”, is about death, and how heart breaking it can be to not be with a loved one. Also there is emotion and feeling in most of the lines in this sonnet.
In comparison, all three poems do have some similarities, but they also have some non-similarities.
The poems are all the same by having a voice, all of the three poems have a voice, but these voices are different. Reasons for this are because “To his Coy Mistress” has a voice, which changes throughout the poem, e.g. it starts with a persuading voice to try and seduce a woman, but it turns into an insulting voice insulting this woman because she has rejected him.
The poem “Remember has different point of view of a dying woman asking for her partner to remember her, not at all like “To his Coy Mistress”. The poem “Remember” is about couple in love but one dies and leaves her lover to be alone and unhappy.
The poem “The Message”, is about love but in a negative way, as in it was love, But now this love is no more.
“The Message” is about a man upset and furious with his wife betraying him as if she is laughing at him behind his back. All three poems have a different voice and meaning to the word ‘love’.
The similarity in all three poems is that they all show imagery to express their love to another person, or to their partner. They express their love in a negative or positive way but they still express it. “To his Coy Mistress” and “Remember” are poems, which express their love in a positive way; but “The Message” expresses its love in a negative way.
All of the three poems have a similarity of having rhyming pairs. These give passion and emotion to their words to give better imagery of the subject.
The differences between the poems are that all three poems are set differently, “Remember” is just one paragraph which is how a sonnet is, “The Message” is set in two paragraphs, and “To his Coy Mistress” is set in three paragraphs which contains more lines than the other two poems.
The tone of each poem is different, the tone in the poem “Remember” changes as if the tone was a paragraph. The tone of the poem “To his Coy Mistress” changes from a positive tone, to a negative tone”, which makes the tone to be varied. Also the tone in the poem “The Message” starts off with a negative tone, but then rises into a fiercer and more negative tone. The poem “To his Coy Mistress” has rhyming pairs but do not have a halting line unlike to the poems “Remember” and “The Message”. Also the structure of this poem has three sections/paragraphs. Whilst reading through these paragraphs, rage and anger starts to ascend, “To his Coy Mistress” has similar tone to an extract from the novel “The Colonel”, which begins with a calm and tranquil tone, to an angry and horrific tone at the end of the extract.
All three poems have similarities but also have some non-similarities.