To my Dear and Loving Husband; Lee Chapman

To my Dear and Loving Husband: Anne Bradstreet

True Love in 12 Lines.

This at first looks like generic poem expressing love to another human being. The title itself portrays the importance and connection the wife has to her husband. Comparing the first words of each line you see how her love is reassured over time. She starts with "if ever" and ends with "then while" and "that when", this change in tense signifies the assurance of her love. The poem has a rhyme scheme that couples each line with the previous in a 1, 2 fashion.

.Noticing this each couplet has a connection with the other describing their love. The first two create an image of togetherness and one being or one love. Using phrases like “two were one” “we” and “thee” it gives the reader a sense of the togetherness between the couple. The next two compare the woman writing the poem to all women of the world who have a good man. “Compare with me ye woman if you can”. She believes that her husband could surpass all theirs as well as their love. The poem gets interesting after this; the next couplet expresses the weight of the love. Phrases such as "mines of gold" and "riches that the East doth hold" compare love with material things that symbolize power and wealth. This woman believes that her love is more important than any material gift. In the next couplet love is compared to water. Water is known as the source of life, and this woman expresses how her love is more fulfilling than life itself by comparing it to "rivers cannot quench". Also she explains how her husband’s love for her is equal to the amount she gives, since it is recompensed. Love takes a spiritual turn in the next couplet, highlighting the words "heavens" "repay" and "pray". Love is a spiritual feeling and using these words, they bring out the emotion and holiness of love. Marriage also is a religious act and the wife portrays that by using those spiritual words. In the last couplet the wife focuses on the timeless limit that their love have. She avoids cliché by not using the word forever to describe the time. When she says "we live no more we may live ever" she is saying how her love will continue to thrive even after their body no longer lives. This poem is the essence of true love; it has depth, weight, life, spirit and time. This poem embodies love in an ethereal sense.