00-A 2T-Poetry-All Poems

Class: Second Year, Department of English (Linguistics & Translation Section), Faculty of Arts, 1 st Semester 1
Course: Selections of Literature (Poetry)

Instructor: Muhammad Hesham
Christopher Marlowe (1564 — 1593)
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.
*
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
*
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
*
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
*
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.
*
The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
VOCABULARY
grove = a group of trees; a small wood
madrigal = song for several voices on the theme of love and/or nature, usually without instruments.
posy = small bunch of flowers; bouquet.
kirtle = {dated} woman’s dress or skirt.
embroider = decorate (cloth) with needlework.
myrtle = any of several types of evergreen shrub with shiny leaves and sweat-smelling white flowers.
gown = a long woman’s dress for special occasions.
buckle = metal clasp with a hinged spike for fastening a belt.
ivy = any of various types of climbing evergreen plant.
coral = red, pink or white substance formed from tiny animals’ skeletons.
clasp = device for fastening things.
amber = yellowish-brown gum used for making ornaments.
stud = small button-like device.
swain = {dated} young man from the country; young male lover.
OVERVIEW
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is a love poem in the pastoral lyric tradition, containing
six quatrains with rhyming couplets. The rhyme scheme is AABB.
ANALYSIS
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe is a celebration of love, innocence,
youth, and poetry. Since the traditional image of shepherds is that they are innocent and accustomed to
living in an idyllic setting, the purpose of such a pastoral poem is to idealize the harmony, peace, and
simplicity of the shepherd’s life.
The main idea of this poem is romantic love mingled with themes such as man, the natural world, and
time. In this poem, a shepherd is presented as speaking to his beloved, evoking “all the pleasures” of the
springtime. The speaker is a loving shepherd, who tries to persuade his beloved to stay with him in the
countryside. As it is a pastoral poem, its physical setting is the countryside, and its temporal setting
is the spring season.
The title “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” refers to the love of a shepherd for his beloved, based
on his romantic ideals of presenting her the beauty of the idyllic world in which he is living. The poem
opens with the popular romantic line, “Come live with me, and be my love.” Obviously, he is addressing
his beloved. He wants her to come and experience pleasures as he says, “we will all the pleasures
prove.”
The shepherd describes the setting in detail: “That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, / Woods, or steepy
mountain yields.” He then makes a promise to her in the next stanza, saying “we will sit upon the rocks,
/ seeing the shepherds feed their flocks.” The lure of the natural setting—of singing birds, nearby
waterfalls, and mountains—is sure to be highly attractive to a beloved.
The poem continues with the shepherd’s future gifts that he will present to his lover: “I will make thee
beds of roses.” The poet has used a word pun in the next phrase “a thousand fragrant posies”
where “posies” has a double meaning: it both refers to poetry as well as a bunch of flowers in
Renaissance terms. In addition, he has used floral imagery to suggest fertility of the countryside. Amid
this romantic setting, the shepherd says that he would make “a cap of flowers, and a kirtle” to
demonstrate his love, adding further that he would also make a gown for her “of the finest wool.”
The use of a poetic device known as “blazon” is highly suggestive here. A blazon is the method through
which the speaker praises his beloved, singling out parts of her body with the help of metaphors.
His arguments appeal to the senses and give feelings of pleasure and love, stating “A belt of straw, and
ivy buds, / with coral clasps and amber studs.” Following this, the shepherd adds sexual overtones to
the stanza by repeating the word “pleasures” in “And if these pleasures may thee
move,” whereas “move” here implies emotions.
His last promise is that “The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing, / For thy delight each May
morning.” This is the final push to coax his beloved to “live with me and be my love” which is his
ultimate objective.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1552? ― 1618)
Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
If all the world and love were young,

And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold

When rivers rage and rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

To wayward winter reckoning yields;
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall,
The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten—
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.
Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,

Thy coral claps and somber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.
But could youth last and love still breed,

Had joys no date nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee and be thy love.
VOCABULARY
nymph = (in ancient Greek and Roman stories) a spirit of nature in the form of a young woman, that
lives in rivers, woods, etc.
Philomel = the nightingale.
dumb = unable to speak.
wanton = {usually before noun} causing harm or damage deliberately and for no acceptable reason.
wayward = difficult to control.
gall = (1) rude behaviour showing a lack of respect that is surprising because the person doing it is not
embarrassed. (2) a bitter feeling full of hatred.
gown = (1) a woman’s dress, especially a long one for special occasions. (2) a long loose piece of
clothing that is worn over other clothes by judges and (in Britain) by other lawyers, and by members of
universities (at special ceremonies).
posy = {plural posies} a small bunch of flowers.
rotten = (of food, wood, etc.) that has decayed and cannot be eaten or used.
OVERVIEW
The poem, “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” by Sir Walter Raleigh, is a response from
a nymph rejecting a shepherd’s proposal of love. The poem is made up of six four-lined stanzas or
quatrains, where each iamb regularly alternates between stressed and unstressed syllables. The emphatic
rhythms focus on creating pauses in order to make the poem more rhetorically expressive. Additionally,
Drummond notes that Raleigh “end-stops his lines very sharply and also provides strong caesuras,
sometimes two in a line.
ANALYSIS
“The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” is Walter Ralegh’s response to a poem by his contemporary
writer Christopher Marlowe. In Marlowe’s original poem, a shepherd propositions a young woman,
promising her a joyful, carefree life in the beautiful countryside if she’ll “come live with [him] and be
[his] love.” In Ralegh’s witty reply, the woman (depicted as a nymph, a mythological forest spirit)
rejects the shepherd, telling him he has failed to recognize that time will eventually destroy all the
treasures he offers her—even and especially his love. In essence, then, “The Nymph’s Reply” is a reality
check that undermines the shepherd’s naïve (or perhaps deliberately misleading) idealism, arguing that
time ultimately conquers all of life’s pleasures.
Responding to the shepherd’s original promises, the speaker acknowledges that the world is full of
beauty and that youthful love indeed offers “joys.” The speaker namechecks all the love-tokens the
shepherd promises to her in the earlier poem, “all” the “pleasures” of life: an idyllic natural environment
to call home, beds of roses and garlands of flowers, luxurious “gowns” made of soft lamb’s wool, pretty
jewelry made of precious “Coral” and “amber.”
These “delights,” the speaker concedes, do sound pretty tempting, and they all seem to fit in with a
vision of giddy, youthful love. Among all these sensual treats, life could be wonderful—for a while, that
is. But the shepherd’s promises, the speaker goes on, are misleading—not necessarily because he’s
trying to deceive her (though he might be), but because he doesn’t understand that everything that exists,
even love, will eventually fall prey to time.
The speaker thus picks apart the shepherd’s plan with devastating logic. She points out that flowers fade,
fields become barren in winter, and that today’s “fancy”—that is, the shepherd’s head-over-heels
attraction and the naïve, possibly deceptive promises that come with it—soon becomes tomorrow’s
“sorrow.”
Even the shepherd’s gifts, which aren’t subject to the natural rhythms of life and death, are doomed to
“rot[].” That is, gowns, shoes, belts—whatever the shepherd offers—all will be wrecked sooner or later.
The nymph thus cannot accept the shepherd’s proposal: since the carefree days of youth are short-lived,
and even love has an expiration date, she wants none of his absurd promises of everlasting bliss.
The nymph “might” be tempted by the shepherd’s offer, she says, but only “if all the world and love”
could stay perpetually young—an obvious impossibility. The shepherd’s “honey tongue” thus tells only
lies. All things come to an end, argues the poem, and any vision of the future (or of love) that doesn’t
acknowledge this brute fact is mere fantasy at best—and a cynical deception at worst.
Edmund Spenser (1552—1599)
One Day I wrote Her Name upon the Strand
One day I wrote her name upon the sand,

But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
“Vain man,” said she, “that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalise,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise.”
“Not so,” quod I, “let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternalise,
And in the Heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live and later life renew.”
VOCABULARY
strand = sand.
vain = not yielding the desired outcome; useless; fruitless; lacking worth.
dost = {archaic} does
assay = to attempt; to try.
decay = to decline; to fall into ruin.
eke = {archaic} also
whenas = when.
quod = {archaic} say
baser = of lower value or status.
subdue = to overcome and bring under control.
OVERVIEW
 Sonnet 75 is part of Amoretti, a sonnet cycle that describes Spenser’s courtship and marriage to
Elizabeth Boyle.
 Sonnet 75 depicts the attempts of the lyrical voice (the speaker) to make his beloved immortal.
A scene is described in which the lyrical voice has a conversation with his beloved about this
particular topic.
 This poem is a Spenserian sonnet, formed by three interlocked quatrains and a couplet. It has an
ABAB BCBC CDCD EE rhyme scheme.
COMMENTARY
The first quatrain describes the speaker writing his lover’s name on the sand. Yet, the very next moment,
the waves swallow them up and the letters vanish away.
The speaker strives once more to leave his writing upon the beach, only to see it quickly disappear.
(“Again I write it with a second hand,/ But came the tide, and made my pains his prey”).
The speaker’s insistence to immortalise his beloved’s name reflects both his deep love to her, and his
confidence in his ability to achieve this aim.
The action of the wave symbolizes how time will destroy all man-made things. To emphasize this action
the waves are personified as they “washed it away” and “made my pains his prey”.
It is worth noticing the way in which the lyrical voice refers to his own writing (“my pains”) and how
this works as a metaphor (“his prey”) for the relationship that the words have with nature and time.
The second quatrain describes a dialogue between the lyrical voice and his beloved. The woman reacts
to the writing and tells the lyrical voice that his attempts are in vain, as mortal things such as herself
cannot live forever.
While criticizing the lyrical voice’s actions and words, she emphasizes her mortal nature and the
inevitability of her decline. Thus, it is useless to write her name because time and nature are cruel and
destroy man-made things.
The third quatrain presents the lyrical voice’s response to the views of his beloved.
The speaker claims that he can make their love last forever despite the inevitable mortality of all
creatures.
The lyrical voice, a poet, will immortalise his beloved in his poems and, because of that, she will live
forever (“My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens write your glorious name”).
By immortalising his beloved, the lyrical voice puts her on a heavenly space, as she will be “in the
heavens” with her “glorious name”.
The final couplet summarizes the message of the poem. According to the lyrical voice, even if
everything comes to an end, their love will survive (“Out love shall live, and later life renew”).
The capitalized world “Death” shows how it will brutally destroy all other things except for their love,
which will be renewed by the presence of the sonnet.
This couplet embraces the theme of the poem that their love will not fade away like other mortal things
on earth.
LITERARY DEVICES
 Spenser makes use of several literary devices in ‘Sonnet 75.’ These include: alliteration,
extended metaphor, and enjambment.
 Alliterations are used frequently in the sonnet. Here are examples:
 “waves” and “washed” (line 2);
 “pains” and “Prey” (line 4);
 “die” and “dust” (line 10);
 “verse” and “virtues” (line 11).
 The first four lines of the poem introduce an extended metaphor that uses the image of a wave
washing away his writing on the beach.
 Enjambment is a common formal device that occurs when a poet cuts off a line before its natural
stopping point. It can be seen in the transition between lines 9 and 10. Alliteration is another
device that is involved with repetition of the initial consonant sounds. For example, “pains” and
“prey” in line 4, and “verse” and “virtues” in line 11.
William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? (Sonnet 18)
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’ rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
VOCABULARY
thee {pronoun}: you {objective case} {Old English}
thou {pronoun}: you {nominative case} {Old English}
art {verb}: are - verb ‘to be’ {Old English}
temperate {adjective}: mild; pleasant; warm
do shake: the use of the auxiliary verb ‘do’ is meant for emphasis, politeness or poetic effect.
bud {noun}: first growth on a plant or flower
lease {noun}: period, time, duration
hath {verb}: has - verb ‘to have’{Old English}
fair {adjective}: attractive; beautiful; handsome
decline {verb}: to become less; to decrease
thy {pronoun}: your {Old English}
eternal {adjective}: endless; everlasting; infinite; permanent
brag {verb}: to boast; to tell everybody triumphantly
wand’rest {verb}: verb ‘to wander’: to walk without direction; to roam {Old English}
shade {noun}: shadow; darkness; gloom; obscurity
growst {verb}: verb ‘to grow’ {Old English}
OVERVIEW
 “Sonnet 18” is one of the best-known of 154 sonnets written by William Shakespeare, in which
the speaker praises the incomparable beauty of his beloved.
 The poem concludes with the assertion that poetry can give immortality to both the beloved and
her beauty, defying even death.
 “Sonnet 18” is an English or Shakespearean sonnet, made up of 3 quatrains and a couplet. It has
a regular rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
ANALYSIS
Shakespeare uses “Sonnet 18” to praise his beloved’s beauty and describe all the ways in which their
beauty is preferable to a summer day. The stability of love and its power to immortalize someone is the
overarching theme of this poem.
The poet begins with an opening question: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” and spends the
rest of the poem answering that question. The poem is straightforward in language and intent. Several
poetic devices enhance the poem’s meaning through the use of form, imagery, and figurative language to
express how his beloved possesses an eternal beauty that far surpasses the brightness of that all-too-
fleeting summer day. Shakespeare uses these devices to also ensure the permanence of his poem,
ensuring that it is everlasting and never succumbs to death like his beloved.
The speaker starts the praise of his beloved without ostentation and slowly builds the image of his
beloved into that perfect being. His beloved is compared to summer in the first 8 lines as “more lovely
and more temperate” than a summer’s day, but at the start of the line 9, his beloved becomes summer as
the speaker states, “but thy eternal summer shall not fade.” With the line 9 of a sonnet often being
the volta or the “turn” of the poem, this may be relevant. The beloved has become the very standard by
which true beauty can and should be judged. The latter part of the poem is marked by a more expansive
tone exploring deeper feelings. The speaker responds to such joy and beauty by ensuring that his
beloved will last forever, saved from the oblivion that accompanies death. The easy music of the poem
may also work to reinforce the inferiority of summer compared to the beloved.
Shakespeare primarily uses imagery of nature throughout the poem to proclaim his feelings about the
beauty of his beloved. He describes summer in a way that contrasts the kind of summer we usually
picture. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” shows that the speaker sees the summer
climate as a blow to the spring flowers. He wants to show just how much better his beloved’s beauty is
compared to that of summer. Shakespeare works to tear down all positive thoughts of summer so that the
reader can recognize just how much he lifts up the image of his beloved. In addition, when the speaker
describes the sun, he uses the words “gold complexion dimmed.” The speaker again downplays the
familiar brightness of the warm, comforting sun, referring to its ray as “dimmed.” As a result of
describing the season’s climate, the speaker wants readers to see that his beloved has looks that will
never change and that summer pales greatly in comparison to his beloved.
Something striking about this poem is how neat and perfectly tied up it is. Every single line is in perfect
iambic pentameter and there is no enjambment. While the poetry is elegant and written in high and
elevated language, the poem is still easy to read. The perfect adherence to the classic sonnet form may
work to demonstrate the perfection of the beloved being described. This works well with the dominant
theme of the poem.
Shakespeare also uses figurative language to bring his message home. Shakespeare personifies the sun,
calling it “the eye of heaven” with “his gold complexion dimmed” – the sun’s complexion dimmed in
comparison to the beloved’s. Giving the sun a human quality begins to degrade what we normally
consider the powerful, untouchable sun. This helps introduce Shakespeare’s theme of emphasizing his
beloved’s lasting beauty. Another personification appears in line 11 when the speaker writes “Nor shall
Death brag thou wander’st in his shade.” Here, the speaker portrays death as a figure who meanders
around his “shade.” The act of equating death to a human being shows that his beloved transcends all
living creatures and even acts of nature. The beloved is the ideal figure not only in the speaker’s eyes but
also in others who will eventually read this poem. The use of figurative language makes the beloved a
superior being whose beauty forever shines and whose power can conquer death itself.
An instrumental part of making this poem work is that the speaker makes it clear of his ability, as a poet,
to eternalize words. The speaker makes this known particularly in the lines “So long as men can breathe,
or eyes can see / so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” While the speaker is saying that his
beloved’s beauty will last for as long as this poem exists, he is also saying that his poetry will be eternal.
The entire poem up until this point expresses great sentiment about his beloved but in these last two
lines, there seems to be a change in the poem’s own estimate of his writing. These lines ultimately show
that the speaker is well aware of his skill.
Overall, the use of imagery, form, and figurative language allows the poet to skillfully get his message
across that his beloved’s beauty exceeds that of a summer’s day and even transcends time.
Shakespeare’s methods also secure the everlasting nature of his poem.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 — 1586)
Loving in Truth… (Sonnet 1)
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,—
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others’ leaves to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sun-burned brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention’s stay;
Invention, nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows,
And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write.
VOCABULARY
fain = faint = weak, vague, lacking strength
woe = great sorrow or distress
halt = cause something or somebody to stop temporarily
step-dame = later wife of one’s father
throes = severe pains
truant = (1) child who stays away from school without permission. (2) person who avoids doing his/her
work or duty.
spite = desire to hurt, annoy or offend another person; ill-will.
muse = in ancient Greek mythology, the Muse is the inspirational Goddess of literature, science and the
arts, and is considered to be the source of the knowledge embodied in poetry, lyric songs and myths.
COMMENTARY
The speaker opens this first sonnet by explaining his motivation for composing the sonnet sequence. He
believes that if his love were to read the sonnets, she would eventually return his affection. He argues
that her pleasure in his pain would cause her to read his sonnets, and her reading of the sonnets would
allow her to know the extent of his affection, which might make her pity the speaker’s situation-and this
pity may transform into grace and love.
The speaker also describes his difficulties in composing the sonnet sequence. He has struggled to
express the pain and misery of his emotions and has tried to look at other poets’ works in order to gain
inspiration. Still, he has been unsuccessful. Finally, the speaker has realized that the only way to fully
express his love for Stella in his poetry is to write from his heart.
The speaker’s actions of writing about how to compose a love sonnet allow him to do just that: compose
a love sonnet. With this in mind, he warns the reader that the emotions expressed in the entire sonnet
sequence stem directly from the heart-thus, he cannot be held rationally responsible. The statements in
this first sonnet make clear that the speaker (who already can be identified with the speaker of the love
sonnets) is conflicted in his role as a zealous lover and a self-critical poet. This sonnet demonstrates the
first of many clashes between reason and passion that appear in the sonnet sequence. He already seems
to know that he will never truly win Stella, but he cannot help but desire her. This conflict between
contradicting forces is a crucial element of the sequence.
ANALYSIS
Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnet “Loving in Truth” is the first poem in his sequence, Astrophel and Stella and
seems to contain the bearings of his lover’s pulse, in suspense and expectation.
Along with frank subjectivity and intense sincerity, “Loving in Truth” is enriched with rich imagination,
a characteristic gift of the renaissance. Thematically, the poem is an open admission of the speaker’s
futile efforts to please his beloved through verse offerings. The poem signifies how he fails to find
inspiration for his poetic composition from serious study and laborious imitation. His eagerness to draw
her attention and thereby to win her favour thus fails till he realizes that true inspiration lies at the core
of his heart. The central theme of the sonnet lies in the concluding couplet in which the speaker
identifies the true source of inspiration in spontaneity of expression: “Look in thy heart and write.”
Indeed, the poem rings with a lover’s intimate feelings and sufferings. Love is seen as an ideal that
requires selfless dedication and earnest yearning. Sidney’s tone is animated with an idealistic zeal, which
is free from egoism. The singleness of emotion, pertaining to love, that characterized the Petrarchan
sonnet is also found in this poem. There is a transition in the speaker’s mood from the octave to the
sestet, but the essential unity is always present and the emotional content remains unaltered.
The sonnet is rich in imagery that is pleasant but precise. The analogies of “other’s leaves” and “fresh
and fruitful showers” are well conceived, and the metaphor of “sun-burned brain” is very original.
Equally interesting are his personifications of “Invention”, “Nature” and “Study”. There is usually no
vagueness about his images. Even farfetched expressions like “Step- dame study’s blows” and “truant
pen” are quite witty and relevant to his contention.
The poem is not a helpless lament of a lover. It has no angry declination or renunciation, but rather filled
with amorous optimism. There is hardly any monotonous glorification of unrequited love. However,
structurally, the poem is Petrarchan in its division of theme into eight and six lines. There are some
variations in the metrical arrangement and the lines are found to rhyme alternately, except the
concluding couplet. The octave (the first eight lines) consists of the speaker’s frantic efforts to please his
beloved by his poetry. The sestet (remaining six lines) shows his failure and final realization. His diction
is well chosen while his imagery is plain yet impressive.
The poem, therefore, both conforms to and deviates from the contemporary style of sonnet writing. It is
characterized by a blend of wit and sensibility, of intellectual brilliance and temperamental ardor.
Sidney’s sonnets, in their directness and spontaneity, remain an intimate record of the mind of a man
who was both sincere and chivalrous. In his depth of sincerity and range of subjectivity, Sidney remains
no less great than Shakespeare himself. His poems represent one of the most genial and original literary
expressions of a true speaker’s profound emotion of love.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 — 1586)
Some Lovers Speak (Sonnet 6)
SOME lovers speak, when they their Muses entertain,

Of hopes begot by fear, of wot not what desires,
Of force of heavenly beams infusing hellish pain,
Of living deaths, dear wounds, fair storms, and freezing fires.
Some one his song, in JOVE and JOVE’s strange tales attires;
Bordered with bulls and swans, powdered with golden rain:
Another humbler wit to shepherd’s pipe retires,
Yet hiding royal blood full oft in rural vein.
To some a sweetest plaint, a sweetest style affords;
While tears pour out his ink, and sighs breathe out his words:
His paper, pale despair; and pain, his pen doth move.
I can speak what I feel, and feel as much as they;
But think that all the map of my state I display,
When trembling voice brings forth, that I do STELLA love
VOCABULARY
Muse = in ancient Greek mythology, the Muse is the inspirational Goddess of literature, science and the
arts, and is considered to be the source of the knowledge embodied in poetry, lyric songs and myths.
wot = {archaic} {used with I, she, he, it, or a singular noun} a form of the present tense {ndicative
mood} of wit.
hellish = {adjective} extremely unpleasant.
Jove = another name of Jupiter = (in Roman tradition) the king and ruler of the Olympian gods.
Stella = a star or a star-shaped form. The name given by the poet to his beloved.
COMMENTARY
Mirroring the first sonnet in the sequence, the speaker describes why he is unable to copy other poets.
He refers to the numerous conventions used to write sonnets. First, some poets view love as an
overpowering force that makes lovers suffer. Second, some use contradictory terms or oxymorons, such
as “living deaths” and “freezing fires.” Third, some use mythology to express their ideas, for example,
describing the many disguises of Jove. Fourth, some use the pastoral tradition, depicting gentlemen and
ladies dressed as shepherds and shepherdesses. Finally, some use conceits to write their sonnets (these
are extended metaphors with a complex logic that often dominates an entire poem). For example, there is
the comparison between tears and ink. Although he recognizes all of these literary traditions for
expressing love in sonnets, Sidney declares that he only can express his love through his voice.
The speaker describes poets’ various means of expressing love in their sonnets. Although he hardly
employs the traditions they use, he feels his love as intensely as they do. Instead of writing poetry,
however, all that he needs to do to show his love is reveal the trembling in his voice as he whispers her
name. This is one of the earliest literary calls for originality in one’s work. In Sidney’s time, it was
common for authors and poets to steal the plots of others. William Shakespeare, for one, thought nothing
of “borrowing” other people’s plots as well as the stories of real historical figures to use in his plays.
Yet, the speaker is unable (or perhaps, unwilling) to rely on other poets to demonstrate his love. In the
end, the emotion in his voice is far superior in expressing his love than any borrowed literary
conventions.
Robert Herrick (1591 — 1674)
To Daffodils
Fair daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain’d his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you,

We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer’s rain;
Or as the pearls of morning’s dew,
Ne’er to be found again.
COMMENTARY
The poem “To Daffodils” by Robert Herrick is written in the form of an apostrophe—a direct address to
an object or absent individual. The speaker addresses the eponymous flowers to lament the fleeting
quality of life and about how life inevitably withers away. Yet, in the throes of this sense of change and
fading, there can be peace and acceptance. There can be solace in the notion that time is humans’ only
constant, and that a new dawn will inevitably come.
Although the poem begins with the speaker directly addressing the daffodils, these flowers are only
partly the central subject of the poem. The speaker conveys the sadness when flowers fade away
experienced by all of humanity. The speaker likens the daffodils’ wilting to a sun losing its momentum
before reaching the noon position in the sky. They beg the daffodils to stay a little while longer until
evening when the rest of mankind will go with them on their end-of-life journey once they have all
prayed together.
In the final stanza of the poem, the speaker equates the situation of the daffodils with that of humans.
Just like the flowers, the youth and vigor humans experience is short-lived. Just like the daffodils,
humans age, change, and pass away. The prime of life is soon over and death quickly arrives. The
speaker parallels this sense of things passing away with a summer rainstorm drying up, or morning dew
evaporating.
The rhythm used in this poem also supports his theme. The rhythm of the poem is very short and
disconnected because it is composed of many short lines and words. The poem itself is very brief in
length. This shortness contributes to the quick rhythm of the poem which in fact represents the brevity
of life. To support this idea of shortness, the poet has used the same structure and the same number of
syllables in both stanzas. The lines in stanza one have the same number of syllables as their congruent
lines in stanza two. Some short lines in this poem are: “Stay, stay”, ”Has run”, ”We die”, and ”Away.”
These lines are all created with one or two words and each contains only two syllables. Some of the
many short words and each contains only two syllables. Some of the many short words that are used in
the poem are: “We”, ”to”, ”so”, ”as”, ”go”, ”do”, ”, ”yet” and ”, ”but”, and ”the.” Each of these words
has only a few letters and only one syllable, so they are said very quickly.
Robert Herrick (1591 — 1674)
To Blossoms
Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,

Why do ye fall so fast?
Your date is not so past
But you may stay yet here a while,
To blush and gently smile;
And go at last.
What! were ye born to be

An hour or half’s delight,
And so to bid good-night?
‘Twas pity Nature brought ye forth
Merely to show your worth,
And lose you quite.
But you are lovely leaves, where we

May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne’er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride
Like you a while, they glide
Into the grave.
COMMENTARY
The poem “To Blossoms” by Robert Herrick is addressed to the flowers of a tree. When the speaker sees
the beautiful flowers of the tree he is filled with happiness. But his heart soon becomes hurtful and
solemn when he realizes that the flowers will not last long. The speaker wonders, “Why did nature bring
such beautiful blossoms if they were to fade away swiftly?” He laments over the rapidly decaying
flowers of the tree that fall so early, but the time has not passed. He asks for trees not to shed their leaves
so quickly that their time is not yet gone.
The speaker then compares the early departure of the tree with man’s short life. He also expresses his
view that we are sad about our short life, but everyone must leave early like the leaves of the fruit tree in
this eternal world.
Thus, the speaker reflects on the short-lived nature of worldly things: flowers, youth and beauty, and all
around. The speaker compares the flowers with the leaves of a book in which the fate of all things can be
read. Every living thing has to meet the same end: death. Therefore, man can learn a lesson from the
fading blooms as he comes close to his tomb.

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Class: Second Year, Department of English (Linguistics & Translation Section), Faculty of Arts, 1 st Semester 1

Course: Selections of Literature (Poetry)

Christopher Marlowe (1564 — 1593)

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552? ― 1618)

Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd

If all the world and love were young,

Time drives the flocks from field to fold

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields

The gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses,

Thy belt of straw and ivy buds,

But could youth last and love still breed,

Edmund Spenser (1552—1599)

One Day I wrote Her Name upon the Strand

One day I wrote her name upon the sand,

William Shakespeare (1564—1616)

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? (Sonnet 18)

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Sir Philip Sidney (1554 — 1586)

Loving in Truth… (Sonnet 1)

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

Sir Philip Sidney (1554 — 1586)

Some Lovers Speak (Sonnet 6)

SOME lovers speak, when they their Muses entertain,

Robert Herrick (1591 — 1674)

Fair daffodils, we weep to see

We have short time to stay, as you,

Robert Herrick (1591 — 1674)

Fair pledges of a fruitful tree,

What! were ye born to be

But you are lovely leaves, where we

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