The Nymph's Reply To the Shepherd

By: ~ Florian Imgrund http://www.inthoughts.de/portfolio.html

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.

Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields,
To wayward winter reckoning yields,
A honey tongue, a heart of gall,
Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.

Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of Roses,
Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies
Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten:
In folly ripe, in reason rotten.


Thy belt of straw and Ivy buds,
The Coral clasps and amber studs,
All these in me no means can move
To come to thee and be thy love.

But could youth last, and love still breed,
Had joys no date, nor age no need,
Then these delights my mind might move
To live with thee, and be thy love.

~ SIR WALTER RALEIGH, 1600

Raleigh was responding to another poem, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe, 1599.  When Raleigh wrote his poem, nymph was essentially the same as saying girl/woman but with a mythical context.  In my opinion, the nymph or female is in essence replying to the 'Passionate Shepherd' from Marlowe's poem by being a bit cynical in the first 4 stanzas particularly setting the mood in the first stanza by utilizing the word "if".... Raleigh is setting up the "IF"/"THEN" argument (whether implied or stated.  IF this is true, THEN that must be true. If all things were perfect, if no man (Shepherd) betrayed his love, if flowers never died, if clothing and shoes did not fade or wear, ect. THEN love would be possible... Happiness, joy, delight would be possible.....

In the last stanza the nymph, girl, upon pronouncing all these things she likely finds joy, happiness, and even love in softens her blows and perhaps she realizes that these things are superficial - flowers, spring, fruit, silk for clothing, and leather for shoes but they all have their time.... and IF "...joys no date, nor age no need, THEN these delights my mind might move / To live with thee, and be they love."  

Time After Time, by, Roland Guballa aka ROLOFOTO who wrote on this photograph, "Love is truly an amazing thing to have; especially if it can withstand the test of time.  I saw this old couple on Younge street and couldn’t help but take a photograph of them. Not only are they adorable, but their genuine love is something truly to be admired! I can already hear Adam Sandler’s “I want to grow old with you” song playing on top of my head as I write this." Please see more of this artist's work at http://rolofoto.tumblr.com/ and at www.rolofoto.net/apps/blog

The Broken Heart

El Abrazo, Oil on Canvas, 2006, Santiago Carbonell

He is stark mad, whoever says,
    That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
    But that it can ten in less space devour ;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
    Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
    I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
    If once into love's hands it come !
All other griefs allow a part
    To other griefs, and ask themselves but some ;
They come to us, but us love draws ;
He swallows us and never chaws ;
    By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die ;
    He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

Don't You Remember, Ryan DeLaurentis His Weblink

If 'twere not so, what did become
    Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
    But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
    More pity unto me ; but Love, alas !
    At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
    Nor any place be empty quite ;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
    Those pieces still, though they be not unite ;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
    My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
    But after one such love, can love no more.

~ John Donne

Love at first sight, in an instant can affect us and make our world feel whole and complete.... make a flash ('a flash of powder burn a day) feel like eternity until love destroys the heart that feels love, but like a mirror shattered on the floor a broken heart ('Those pieces still, though they be not unite; And now, as broken glasses show - A hundred lesser faces....') shattered shows love even in the shattered heart.... It is part of the broken hearted only amplified and reflected hundreds of times over.  The heart of the love lost remains, but in painful shards. After such a strong, passionate, love at first sight and whole love described Donne writes 'But after one such love, can love no more.' - perhaps it is not that love is not possible, but this kind of love is a once in a lifetime love, not shattered and painfully gone.

I Wonder Why You Call to Me Nearly a Year Later Lovelace

To Althea, From Prison

'Longing For Freedom' Alicepopkorn

When love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

 Florian Imgrund http://www.inthoughts.de/portfolio.html

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free,
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good

He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

'Free' by Alicepopkorn 

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take, That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

~by Richard Lovelace

Lovelace, dear friend, perhaps you call again because my mind is even freer, my imagination more full of hopes/dreams/desires/future.... Laurel leaves will come and go and wine may flow now but not later but I am here.... I am still here. 

I may be a temporary captive by my commitment to my degree at UF but I can see my freedom clearly on the horizon and my heart sings so loudly it thunders all other sounds; I have concentrated on my love of the arts and they have freed me even in my self imposed educational confinement and my joy and soul soar............ 

So now with only a matter of weeks from completing my degree. I know so much more, feel so much more, 'see' so much more, am so very much more.......

The Good-Morrow

The Shades of Francesca de Rimini and Paolo Malatesta Appear to Dante and Virgil, 1855, Ary Scheffer, Oil on Canvas, The Louvre, Paris, France

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres,

Without sharp north, without declining west?

Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;

If our two loves be one, or, thou and I

Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Source: The Norton Anthology of Poetry Third Edition (1983)