The structure of the poem is like a continuous text without stanzas but includes some indentations when there is a change of pace. There is great emphasis on time and pace reinforced by the social classes of the man and woman, ‘He ambles on before, she trots behind.’ The key words in this line ‘ambles’ and ‘trots’ reinforce the fact that he is of higher class. So he walks leisurely with grace in a proud way as he is of higher class and he is like her ‘master’-irony whereas she is his ‘mistress’ so she must obey and respect him and so follows behind him at a brisk yet quite a fast pace symbolising her as lower class and inferior to him.
Also at this point, ‘He ambles on before, she trots behind,’ the man and woman have swapped roles of pace because she is the one speeding up to keep up with his fast pace, hurrying her actions. He is walking at a slow relaxed pace as he is satisfied and certain that everything will go according to plan which is the seduction from the woman.
The child is associated with the woman’s attitude as the child is seen as innocent and pathetic, like her, emphasised by the adjective, ‘little,’ in this line ‘For little Bobby, to her shoulders bound.’
There is focus on time and speed to emphasise the man’s desperation and keenness in this line, ‘He often asked her to expose,’ he appears to be persistent as he does not like to waste time keeping the mood pro-active. The woman feels uncomfortable and dubious of this man. She does not trust him, and so is smart enough to realise that he is crafty, ‘But she still feared the coming of his company.’ The humorous irony is that she is very crafty too and will shock him by leaving her child with him so he has a great burden on him.
There is another change of roles, this is towards the end of the poem, the pace increases greatly. There is great emphasis on speed reinforced by the use of verbs highlighted by alliteration of the letter ‘s’ in the words ‘goes,’ ‘throws,’ and ‘mounts’. The woman’s actions are rapid as she carries out her plan focusing on the verbs just stated, reinforcing the woman’s sudden actions. She gives her son to the man which is a deceiving and unmotherly act and makes a quick exit making a contrast with a previous line in the poem, ‘He ambles on before, she trots behind’ showing her slow pace when she walks behind the man described by the word ‘trots.’ This change in pace causes a change in attitude of the woman which is similar to the attitude of the man at he beginning of the poem as he was deceitful and uncaring towards her, ‘To come so far and disoblige you both.’ She is also just as eager as him to carry out her plan, increasing her pace to reinforce this, ‘with speed incredible to work she goes.’
Towards the end of the poem, the gentlemen is seen as naïve and oblivious here which is the impression he got from the woman as she allowed him to use her, so he tried to fix his seduction plan on her, ‘The gentleman had scarce got time to know what she was doing.’
There is a simile, ‘Like a cross,’ as it make a comparison with Christianity, comparing the child on the gentleman’s back to the cross that Jesus Christ had to carry on his back suggesting that the child causes the physical act of carrying a load but he must be taken care of, therefore he is a great responsibility, adding a religious theme to the poem.
At the end of the poem, it is ironic and humorous because the tables have turned, and the man’s plan had failed so now he appears to look pathetic as she leaves him with a great responsibility, teaching him the moral that there is no pleasure without responsibility.
‘But ere you get another, ‘ten’t amiss to try a year or two how you’ll keep this,’ this line is humorous suggesting from the word ‘another’ that the man may have other children so he must learn from this lesson that seducing women may be pleasurable but results in unpleasant consequences of many responsibilities. The beggar woman may feel hopeful in leaving her child with him as he may provide him wit a better life so it may not be a cold, unmotherly act after all.
In the poem, ‘Our Love now,’ the man and woman have different attitudes to the situation. The poem is a balanced dialogue which is an antithesis.
The overall structure of the poem is an antithesis, that is, the whole dialogue of each person is opposing each other. It is constructed of eight stanzas consisting of seven lines. It can be compared to a pair of ‘weighing scales’ because the man would express his optimistic feelings to her while she would express her pessimistic feelings to him, she would outweigh him.
The man and woman both have different approaches towards the situation. The situation is that the man is persuading the woman for another chance to rebuild their damaged relationship and within time, she will stop feeling hurt. The woman disagrees with this and is balancing his positive comments by saying that there is no hope and the relationship is over. The whole conversation is based on contradiction as the woman is contradicting the man.
The man’s speech is optimistic and hopeful using time as an aid of relieving the pain she is feeling, ‘Observe how the wound heals in time,’ yet the woman’s speech is negative and objectionable as she speaks in a firm and serious yet calm tone, ‘Although the wound heals and appears cured, it is not the same.’
Each stanza is addressed at the beginning by ‘I said,’ by the man and ‘She said,’ by the woman so it is like he is telling the story to the reader. The word ‘such is our love’ is used in each stanza by the woman as she is emphasising that all of her negative speech is referring to their love at that current moment. The repetition of the words ‘such is our love’ and ‘although’ by the woman in each stanza shows that they are counteracting, reinforcing their points of view in order to make the man understand that there can be no chance of love.
There is a use of metaphors describing physical pain of a wound in comparison with emotional pain of a relationship. The scab will form a protective layer, a scab that will eventually reform to skin, using this comparison to heartache which causes hurt feelings to the woman, but she will soon forget these hurt feelings and regain the love again. This line suggests this,’how the skin slowly knits,’ reinforcing the effect of time as a healer by alliteration of the letter ‘s.’ The man tends to be looking at their relationship in future tense as he uses time as a healer, ‘the cut will mend and such is our relationship,’ whereas the woman is more level-headed and tends to think of the relationship in the present tense, ‘The style will be different such is our love now.’
The woman comebacks with the honest fact that although she will try to forget the grief he has caused her, she has not forgiven him as she can not forget his mistake and it has consequences that effect her, therefore it will affect future relationships using a scar as a metaphor, ‘There is always a scar, a permanent reminder.’
The man’s attitude is positive but he tries to empathise the woman’s pain by using negative words to try to explain to her that he understands her sorrow speaking in a confident tone, ‘Observe the scab of the scald, the red burnt flesh is ugly.’ There is a use of colour and adjectives ‘burnt’ and ‘flesh’ to emphasise the pain of love that she is experiencing right now is difficult to deal with, using time as a gradual eraser of the pain using the word ‘disappear’ in this line, ‘In time it will disappear.’ It takes time to heal showing that the pace is slow to show that he is being considerate towards her feelings. In this line, the man appears to be pleading, he’s trying to be confident and reassuring.
The woman objects by also using a use of colour, ‘the skin remains bleached’ followed by her after effects feelings which time can not mend, ‘and a numbness prevails.’ She also speaks in a confident and certain tone as she carefully thinks of the consequences of a painful relationship.
The man gradually begins to become more desperate and urgent and tries to act determined and strong in the poem by using another bodily metaphor, ‘remember how when you cut your hair, you feel different and somehow incomplete. But the hair grows-before long it is always the same our beauty together is such.’ He is trying to make the woman understand that there is still love present between them, he is trying hard to convince her of this so he speaks in a pleading tone. The woman is not interested and does not accept this metaphor of her damaged or cut hair being able to grow back, she believes that although her hair will grow back, changes occur such as her hair would have a different style linking this with the fact that if they had a new relationship together, her feelings towards him would be different as she wouldn’t have as much trust or faith in him. There is an oxymoron of the words, ‘same’ and she used the word, ‘different.’ She highlights that she is slightly irritated by his persistence using this line, ‘Changes must occur.’
There is a change of pace as at the beginning he was talking about the long time it takes to heal ‘skin slowly’ now he switches to a faster pace as he is suggesting that sooner than she thinks, the pain will ease away, ‘but the hair grows- before long.’ He appears to be urgent and desperate in this stanza as he loses patience. He also reminisces back to the past as he recalls their relationship, emphasised by the word ‘remember’ in this line, ‘Remember how when you cut your hair.’
The woman answers back with an implication of a slow pace of growth, suggesting it takes time to regain emotional strength so she feel reluctant to starting a new relationship with him.
In the last stanza he admits that a great deal went wrong in their relationship, using the metaphor of forces of nature as he is suggesting that the scale of effects of a storm can have a great deal of physical impact and this is similar to the effects of a relationship which has a great deal of emotional impact. This is emphasised by the violent adjective ‘raging’ and the sense of hearing in the word ‘listening,’ this line suggests this, ‘Listen to how the raging storm.’
In the last stanza the man ends in a hopeful message, ‘the breach in us can be mended’ whereas she ends in a negative, final message, ‘The tree is forever dead such is our love,’ highlighted by ‘Such is our love’ without using the word ‘now’ unlike the endings of the other stanzas. This line suggests that their relationship has ended and there is no more love existing between them. She is reinforcing that the pain is so bad that she ends it in a morbid way by comparing it to death like the death of the trees which will no longer exist.
At this point she seems quite irritated and annoyed that he wont realise the fact that there will not be any new fresh starts in their relationship. This line is a termination to his persistent beseeching.
