Great Regulars: When her partner first told her

that he loved her, she senses that God was speaking His own love for her as well.

As she excitedly but tenderly took in the meaning of the declaration of love, she realized what her lot might have become without this happy turn of events. She responds rather hesitantly, even awkwardly recalling her physical illnesses that she labels "the curse."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Barrett Browning's Sonnet 2

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The speaker finally remarks that her beloved has "chrism" on his head, while she has only "dew." The precious oil coupled with plain dew astonishes her, and she conjures the image, "Death must dig the level where these agree." On the material plain and in a clearly class-based society, she cannot reconcile the differences; thus, she asserts that she will just allow "Death" to determine the meaning and progression of it all.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Barrett Browning's Sonnet 3

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Wilfred Owen's Petrarchan sonnet, "Anthem for Doomed Youth," features two questions regarding the deaths of soldiers dying in war: In the octave, the speaker asks, what is the point of tolling death knells for people who "die as cattle"? His question dehumanizes the heroes who give their lives in service to their country.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth

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In the second quatrain, the speaker reports that his siblings, a brother and a sister, both "died at birth." But oddly, those siblings are "continuing their existence in you/Guiding my life/Toward their incomprehensible innocence."

It is at this point that the workshop will break into pandemonium over the workability of the quatrain. How the devil can he liken his shoes to his dead brother and sister? How on earth can those dead siblings be guiding his life through his shoes, no less? And what is so "incomprehensible" about the "innocence" of infants who die at birth?

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Simic's My Shoes

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The speaker insists that he "will come again and again!" The unselfishness of the God-united saint is beyond comprehension by those unrealized minds and hearts, whose very existence seems to dictate the necessity of remaining self-centered and self-focused as they identify with their flesh, race, country, gender, and their relatives and possessions.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's God's Boatman

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