In this essay I am going to compare and contrast two poems, ‘Our Love Now’ and ‘To His Coy Mistress’. Poetry has been around now for many decades, it is a form of writing that can be expressed in many different forms of style, context and language. The majority of poetry is love or war poetry, this is because love and war have many different view points form every individual person therefore no love or war poem can be the same due to this emotion involved. I.e., in a love poem you are writing your own personal feelings about or for a loved one, no other person can have these exact feelings, it is a way of opening out your heart. In a war poem you may write about a loved and lost one or you could write about your own emotion towards the death and destruction of the war. Even the buildup and aftermath of the war has been expressed in poems.
The two poems I am going to compare and contrast in this essay are, ‘Our Love Now’ and ‘To His Coy Mistress’.
The two poems are both about love, a man trying to get a woman to love him.
The poem ‘Our Love Now’ gives the impression that a couple have been together for some time now and that a series of long term problems in the relationship has caused the permanent break up of this couple, its apparent that all these problems were caused by the male, as it seems he is trying to win her back with his positive attitude, he’s trying to make her love him again.
“I said,
Observe the scab of the scald,
The red burnt flesh is ugly,
But it can be hidden.
In time it will disappear,
Such is our love, such is our love”
The line “The red burnt flesh is ugly” shows the pain caused by the break up of this couple or maybe it could be the pain caused by an argument or such a thing.
‘Burnt flesh’ enforces the idea of pain and ‘ugly’ could mean that he knows their love is ugly at the moment but ugliness can be hidden.
Her reply to his statement is as follows:
“She said,
Although the burn will no longer sting
And we’ll almost forget that its there
The skin remains bleached
And a numbness prevails.
Such is our love now.”
The lines
‘Although the burn will no longer sting
And we’ll almost forget its there’
Show that the woman respects that the pain and problems can be forgotten and pushed away but the lines:
‘The skin remains bleached
And a numbness prevails’
…tell us that the woman knows that the problems are still going to be present deep down inside and that nothing can change that, it’s always going to be there and cannot be taken back.
‘Our Love Now’ ends with the woman saying:
‘The tree is forever dead.
Such is our love’.
The woman is saying that their love and relationship has been killed off and is now forever dead.
Our Love Now is a poem written by Martyn Lowery.
The Poem ‘To His Coy Mistress’ is about a man whom is trying to flatter/seduce a girl and to try and make her sleep with him.
The language he uses is very sexual, persuasive and forceful, the author also relates to time being an important essence in his ‘crush’.
As soon as we start reading the poem we can analyze it and we can see what is happening.
‘Had we but world enough, and time
This coyness, Lady, were no crime’
These are the first two lines of the poem, they tell us that the man so far has been rejected by the woman, he infact thinks it’s a crime that she has done such a thing.
As the poem progresses, the poem tells us that the man will wait all eternity for his woman,
‘I would love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if u please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews’
The flood he has mentioned on the first line was supposed to happen 4000 b.c and the conversion of the Jews was supposed to not happen until the world ends. This shows devotion, makes the woman feel special and at ease.
At the double entendre in the first stanza, the poem begins to change toward the more sexual nature, the poem tells us that the man is not just interested in the womans personality but that he is also up for the more sexual side of a relationship aswel,
‘My vegetable love should grow
Vaster then empires’
He is referring to phallic, it’s an attempt to turn the woman on, it’s a reminder to her of what he wants (sex).
He continues to explain that he is willing to admire her for hundreds and thousands of years,
‘Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to adore the rest’.
He is hoping to flatter her, maybe sexually so that she will sleep with him.
In the second stanza, his point of view changes, he is telling the woman to rush into the relationship because they don’t have forever, where as before in the first stanza he was telling her that they had forever, he would wait for her for eternity, she could taker her time.
But now in the second stanza he gives the impression,
‘Take me now or go without.’
‘Thy beauty shall no more be found’
This is another example of the fact the man wants her to rush into the relationship, he is forwarding the impression that she is going to grow old and her looks shall be lost, they must therefore act now or never.
But on the last stanza the poet leaves on a positive note to try and keep the woman seduced and overwhelmed,
‘Let us roll al our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life’.
