Understanding Love's Philosophy
The speaker becomes increasingly desperate throughout the poem, shown through his expanding natural references. He begins with earth-based imagery like "fountains" and "rivers" in the first verse, then escalates to celestial imagery including "sunlight" and "moonbeams" in the second, reflecting his growing urgency to persuade his lover.
The poem's heavy use of personification ("See the mountains kiss high heaven" and "the waves clasp with one another") serves a strategic purpose. By portraying natural elements as affectionate pairs, the speaker argues that all things in nature work in harmony and come in pairs - nothing stands alone. This builds his case that he and his lover should naturally be together too.
Structurally, the poem features two equal verses of eight lines, mirroring the romantic idea that everything has a partner. This could be considered a lyric poem as it conveys feelings rather than telling a story, or a dramatic monologue where the poet speaks to a silent listener whose response we never hear.
Think about this: The speaker's repeated use of rhetorical questions like "why not I with thine?" presents him as demanding. Is he genuinely lovesick, or manipulatively using every argument possible to get what he wants?
The poem connects to Shelley being a Romantic poet who believed everything is connected. Though Shelley was a well-known atheist, religious references in the poem ("by a law divine") introduce ideas of Pantheism and serve to manipulate the listener rather than expressing genuine religious sentiment.