Poetry Blog #3

For this blog post, I chose to analyze "To the Virgins to Make Much of Time" by Robert Herrick and "True Love" by Robert Penn Warren. These two poem could not be more dissimulate in their portrayal of romantic relationships.

"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" presents a rater crass perspective of love. Essentially, the speaker (who is assumed to be Herrick himself) is advising the audience to engage in promiscuous relationships while they are young rather than pursuing more meaningful love affairs defined by compassion and fidelity. Though this theme is insinuated through the poem, one stanza is particularly effective in conveying the speaker's attitude towards love: "Then be not coy, but use you time, and while ye may, go marry; for having lost but once your prime, you may forever tarry. From these lines, it is clear that the speaker views love in its simplest form; to him, love is synonymous to coitus.

In stark contrast, "True Love" perceives love its more romantic qualities. As the title suggests, the speaker (who is also assume to be the poem's author, Robert Penn Warren) views love as a feeling that should be cherished and never forgotten. the poem relates the story of a young boy of age ten, presumably Warren, who falls deeply in love with a girl as soon as he catches sight of her. Enthralled by the sight he has beheld, he remarks that "Beauty. It stops your heart. It thickens your blood. It stops your breath. I leaned against a telephone pole and watched. I thought I would die if she saw me." The innocent love described in these lines contrasts sharply with the sordid themes conveyed in Herrick's poem. As opposed to Herrick's poem, "True Love" lauds the compassionate nature of romance, suggesting that such true love can never be entirely forgotten or replaced.

While I am usually nauseated by sappy love movies and story plots, I definitely agree with Warren's perception of love in his poem "True Love." Love is an abstract concept that should be cherished completely, for it is not nearly as simple as casual copulation. True love between any two people is a force to be reckoned with. As Huey Lewis said in his hit song "The Power of Love" (immortalized by the movie Back to the Future), "that's the power of love."