Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Great Regulars: Does this imply sincerity or its opposite?

Whatever is or is not happening in the poem, sexual anxiety is present, signalled most obviously in the repetition of the suffix "-less".

The poem's most memorable image is "those Babies in your eyes"--an endearing picture of merry innocence, complicated by the notion that the speaker might also be seeing his own reflection(s). Possibly, of course, an (unshared?) desire for babies might also be suggested. The poem perhaps never achieves anything quite so hauntingly expressive again. But it is surely redeemed because of that achievement.

[by Robert Herrick]

To his Mistress, Objecting to him neither Toying or Talking

from Carol Rumens: The Guardian: Books blog: Poem of the week

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