One of Shakespeare’s four full-length love poems, this poem is written in seven-line stanzas and in royal rhyme, as is another Shakespearean love poem, The Rape of Lucretia. The actual rhyme scheme of the rhyme is (aba-bb-cc). This complete poem has 394 lines and 2579 words. so if you haven’t read it yet and don’t have the time to do so, take a look at my summary below.
The poem tells the story of a young maiden who laments that a persuasive and womanizing young man has seduced her. He finally abandons her and breaks her heart. The story begins with her crying and lamenting by the river, and an old shepherd hears her, takes pity and comes over to comfort her. He finds her throwing love tokens into the river as she cries, old love letters (some written in blood), and jewelry, all delivered by the man himself. The pastor realizes that although she looks scruffy, she is still young and must have been pretty before she reached that state.
It tells the story of how an innocent and chaste young woman was, who was not easily seduced by men of red blood. This young man had a reputation for being a notorious womanizer, and the young maid was cautious at first. Finally, her charms and popularity seduced her. Shakespeare goes on to describe the many qualities of the young man, he was very handsome, had wit, charm and a sparkle in his eyes. He had a “submissive tongue” and could “make the one who cries laugh, the one who laughs cry.” He gave her gifts and tokens of love from his previous lovers to show how much he loved her, and she accepted them and almost believed that he loved her. Perhaps he did, it is not clarified in the poem, but soon the young maid began to fall in love with the young man, even though she knew his nature as a womanizer and a cheater.
Over time, the young man began to lack the truth and deep down she knew it, but she was so in love that he blinded her and she ignored him. The young man eventually left her to pursue another woman, and now the young woman is sad and lonely.
Shakespeare explores two different themes of the nature of love here, both of which are very dangerous. In this love poem by Shakespeare, there is, first of all, the power of love to blind all the senses. The young maiden was at that time a chaste and good young woman, and she knew that the young man was a fickle seducer, yet at that moment she was blinded by love and it took away all reason.
Another theme is the cruelty of love, how this young woman was cruelly deceived and abandoned by this man. Sometimes people have very little concern for other people’s feelings. This could also be interpreted as a theme about how fickle men’s hearts are. In this poem, we are not sure if the man really loved the young maid too much or if he was just using her, but some lines portray him in bad light. I particularly like this very clever description near the end of the poem “… although our drops endured this difference, it poisoned me and restored mine.” This is my favorite line from the poem and it describes how the seductive young man’s fake tears tricked the young maiden into falling in love with him, but her real tears gave the young man strength and boosted his ego. The use of the word poison almost adds an evil touch to the young man’s motives. I like the description in this poem of the defects and qualities of each character. Hanging her pale, pained cheek to the side, “this description makes her look very simple in appearance, almost as if she could be pretty, but did not have the strength or energy to care about her appearance. We could all learn here from her romantic writings. Shakespeare.
This, in my opinion, is one of the best Shakespearean love poems for learning poetry due to its simple themes about the dangers of love. Many of you can relate to the story of the young maid in this poem, but if you are looking for a clever description, this is one of the best poems to look at.
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