The Definition Of Love Poem by Andrew Marvell

The Definition Of Love

Rating: 3.1


My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by despair
Upon Impossibility.

Magnanimous Despair alone.
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'r have flown
But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing.

And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended Soul is fixt,
But Fate does Iron wedges drive,
And alwaies crouds it self betwixt.

For Fate with jealous Eye does see.
Two perfect Loves; nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruine be,
And her Tyrannick pow'r depose.

And therefore her Decrees of Steel
Us as the distant Poles have plac'd,
(Though Loves whole World on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embrac'd.

Unless the giddy Heaven fall,
And Earth some new Convulsion tear;
And, us to joyn, the World should all
Be cramp'd into a Planisphere.

As Lines so Loves Oblique may well
Themselves in every Angle greet:
But ours so truly Paralel,
Though infinite can never meet.

Therefore the Love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debarrs,
Is the Conjunction of the Mind,
And Opposition of the Stars.

Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Topic(s) of this poem: love
COMMENTS OF THE POEM

Superbly shows the impossibility of some unachievable love by personifying two loves as stars and earth being paralell they can never meet.Though desperation is seen.

0 1 Reply
Vincent Coster 17 June 2014

This poem strikes me because of the fact that it is about a love that can never happen. Here the poet is lamenting the fact that he is unable to enjoy the love he carries in his heart. It is a theme that I too would love to tackle.

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Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell

Yorkshire, England
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