Leaving Certificate Ordinary Level – Excellence in English Language and Literature
Mood
The mood of this poem is overwhelmingly positive. The speaker is deeply in love and believes her life to have been changed in a positive way as a result. There is a confi dence in her expression of love, suggesting that her feelings are returned by the man in her life. This is a joyful expression of a blissfully happy relationship.
Setting
The setting is the speaker’s heart and soul, where her love for the subject of the poem resides. The world of the poem is a spiritual world rather than a physical one.
Relevance
The theme of this poem is love: an intense and powerful and overwhelmingly positive love. This is one of the most common themes in poetry and in song.
The positivity of the speaker’s love is clear when she says that ‘the passion put to use/In my old griefs’ is now expended in love rather than suffering. She wants to be with her loved one every moment of the day and night: ‘by sun and candlelight’. She never wants to be parted from him and vows to love him even ‘better after death’ if God is willing.
Collections
This sonnet undoubtedly belongs in a collection of love poems.
The poet’s passion is shown throughout the poem, but perhaps most strongly in this quote: ‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height/My soul can reach’.
The speaker says that her love goes ‘to the depth and breadth and height’ her soul can reach, showing that there are no limits to her love just as there are no limits to the spiritual world.
There are no notes of doubt in the poem. The speaker asks only one question, which is ‘How do I love thee?’ She has no diffi culty in listing all the ways and ends by saying that she will love him eternally: ‘I shall but love thee better after death’.
