The second stanza reveals how to lord treated the maiden, beginning by taking her to his home. The maiden is “lured to his place of home” and then treated as a possession “plaything and love”. This suggests that the lord has power over the naïve cottage maiden; this gives an image of a predator and his prey. “He wore me like a silken knot, he changed me like a glove” Theses similes show that the lord feels like the maiden is nothing more than a material possession that can be discarded.
The cottage maiden shows regret over her time with the lord” now I moan, an unclear thing, who might have been a dove” wishing she had kept herself clean and pure.
Cousin Kate is later introduced into the poem, “O lady Kate, my cousin Kate, you grew more fair than I” this indicates that the lord is now married to Kate (the title Lady) the maidens mood has turned to bitterness and jealously of what Kate has. The lines “chose you and cast me by” and “he lifted you from mean estate to sit with him on high” this shows how Kate’s life has improved and she know leads an improved lifestyle, since meeting the preying lord”
The lines “because you were so good and pure, be bound you with his ring, the neighbors call you good and pure, call me an outcast thing” this suggests that the people who lived during the Victorian period look down on women who have children out of wed lock. This indicates how the maiden feels about herself by calling Cousin Kate good and pure.
The fifth stanza starts with the lines “O cousin Kate my love was true, your love was written in sand” the narrator now takes on an accusing tone. She thinks her love was true and real, and not easily destroyed like the love Kate and the lord has.
The cottage maiden feels betrayed and let down by Kate and states that if they were each other, the lord would not have won her love, “I would have spit in his face and not have taken his hand” Kate understand how the badly the lord treated the maiden, yet still made the decision to marry him. Which shows that she thought Kate betrayed her by accepting the Lord's love.
The final stanza is told with a more adolescent attitude, and ends with a revelation. It appears as if the maiden is using the child she and the lord have together as an excuse. “I’ve a gift you have not got and seem not like to get” this suggests that the maiden is taunting Kate that she has something that she could never have.
This gives the impression that the cottage maiden is grateful for the child she has been giving and is proud of what she has, feeling there is hope for the future.
The second Poem “The Seduction” is about a girl who a boy at a party and has sex with him whilst drunk, and ends up pregnant, once the pregnancy is revealed there is no more mention of the boy, this gives the impression that the boy used her for a one night stand and she never sees him again.
The title of this poem “Seduction” implies that it is about romance. The poem also targets society at the time by portraying the media negatively. In the first two lines of the “Seduction” the poet creates a sense of setting “quiet bricks of Birkenhead docks” in a similar way to “Cousin Kate” however, it shows the place to be run-down, which highlights the “crime” that could be committed in the area.
The second line “he led her” creates a sense that the male character is in charge of the situation. In the next line the poets use of the word “far” emphasises how vulnerable the young girl is. In line four the boy is portrayed as the “bad” character and shown to have no respect for the girl. The male character appears to be in control and more dominant than in “Cousin Kate”. In the second stanza the girl “nodded, quite enchanted and her eyes were wide and bright” this demonstrates how the girl is really feeling, that she is in love with the boy, and she has no idea she is being used by him. The word “enchanted” used in the twelfth line creates an image of a fairytale, while the reality is much different.
In the seventh stanza we hear the girl speak, she “talked about school” and we learn that she has dreams and aspirations for the future, like the girl in “Cousin Kate” the poet then created an image of unpleasantness “the frightening scum” which mirrors the situation.
In stanza nine, there is a turning point “when she discovered she was three months gone” highlighting the misery the girl is feeling. We see how the girl regrets what has happened, and now realizes that she was just used by the teenage boy.
“On that day she broke the heels of the high white shoes” this shows the anger that the young girl is feeling and how she wishes that night had never happened. Also the white is a symbol and goodness and purity, which is used in an ironic-way as the girl has thrown her purity away.
In the fourteenth stanza, we get a shocking insight into the thoughts and feelings of the girl “better to destroy your life, in modern and manmade ways, than to fall into a despicable feminine void” this shows that she feels she has destroyed her life. She feels betrayed by the stories she has read in magazines which promise her sixteenth year would be "Full of glitzy fashion features and stories of romance," she feels cheated by the promise that was made.
In the fifteenth and final stanza we see how negative societies views are, which is similar to “Cousin Kate”. The final part gives the impression that the pregnant teenager feels hopeless, which is a stark contrast to “Cousin Kate” in which the girl feels that her baby as a blessing, "I've a gift".
I enjoyed reading the poems, but I especially enjoyed looking at “Cousin Kate” as I felt I could understand and relate to the character of the maiden better due to it being written in the first person. I also enjoyed “The Seduction” as it was only written a few decades ago (1980’s), which made it easier to relate to and the poem its self easier to interpret as it contained modern language that I was more familiar with. After reading both poems I realized how society views on teenage pregnancy have hardly changed, it is still frowned upon by society.
