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Analyze the poem "Love and Life" by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.
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The poem "Love and Life" by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, employs an ABAAB rhyme scheme and iambic meter to emphasize its "carpe diem" theme. It consists of three stanzas where the speaker addresses Phyllis, urging her to embrace the present moment due to life's transitory nature. The poem highlights the fleetingness of time, suggesting that enjoying the present is more rewarding than worrying about future constancy or commitments.
The rhyme scheme in this poem is an interesting choice on the part of the poet and serves to isolate, and emphasize, the final line of each of the stanzas. The ABAAB format marks out the concluding line of each stanza as a sort of summary of what has come before, the key point the poet is making.
The first stanza of the poem dwells on the "transitory" nature of life, which, once past, is "gone" and "mine no more." The final line underlines the key point, which is that only "by memory alone" can we retain a grip on what is gone. This theme is one common to poetry of this period, and marks out the poem as a "carpe diem" verse in which the speaker urges his subject, Phyllis, to contemplate the brevity of life and thus take enjoyment where she can. The final line of the second...
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stanza addresses Phyllis by name, stating that "the present moment" only belongs to the speaker and his beloved. The current time "only," the speaker emphasizes, is all they have.
In the third stanza, the speaker anticipates, and attempts to dispense with, his beloved's concerns, asking her to "talk not of inconstancy." The speaker does not want to consider what will happen in the future, saying that it is "all that Heaven allows" for him to be "this live-long minute true to thee." Rather than swearing eternal loyalty and faithfulness, then, the speaker takes an alternate route, returning to his theme of the fleetingness of time to suggest that thinking in the long term is not helpful or rewarding. Instead, he tries to urge his beloved, Phyllis, to think only of the present time, "all my lot," and enjoy it with the speaker, because it will soon be gone.
The poem "Love and Life" by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680) consists of three five-line stanzas. The metrical pattern of all three stanzas is:
- Line 1: Iambic tetrameter; A rhyme
- Line 2: Iambic trimeter; B rhyme
- Line 3: Iambic tetrameter; A rhyme
- Line 4: Iambic tetrameter; A rhyme
- Line 5: Iambic trimeter; B rhyme
In other words, the iambic tetrameter lines (1, 3, and 4) rhyme with each other, as do the trimeter lines.
It is written in the first person, with a male narrator directly addressing a female beloved named Phyllis.
Thematically, it is a "carpe diem" poem. It argues that time is constantly moving forward, with the past disappearing into memory, the present fleeting and the future unknown. Thus Phyllis should not insist on constancy or wedding vows, but instead yield to his overtures in the present, because the present is all one can have; the poem thus concludes:
If I, by miracle, can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
'Tis all that Heav'n allows.