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Ava Lalor
Critical Writing
Narrative Response Essay

A Passion of Old

A poem, my professor asked one day in class. Does anyone have a poem they found

that they would like to share? I had not begun my search, so I was curious to hear what poems

my classmates had discovered. One student, sitting front row in the middle of two other guys,

offered his poem, slightly embarrassed by its title. Its called To My Dear and Loving Husband,

he said, which made the class chuckle. What guy would have purposely read a poem with that

title? He then told the class where he had found it in our book so we could follow along.

Unfortunately for me, I had ordered the wrong edition, so I looked over my neighbors shoulder.

Please read it to the class, my professor asked, as if you were the wife. The class erupted in

snickers. Surprised by this request, he took a deep breath and indulged our professor and

classmates. He began: If ever two were one but was quickly cut off by our professor. No,

you must read the title. Always start with the title. The student started again.

To My Dear and Loving Husband

By Anne Bradstreet

If ever two were one, then surely we.

If ever man were loved by wife, then thee;

If ever wife was happy in a man,

Compare with me ye women if you can.

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,

Or all the riches that the East doth hold.

My love is such that rivers cannot quench,

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Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love lets so persever,

That when we live no more we may live ever.

We applauded our fellow student before turning back to our professor. The thought was

all in our minds: What is he going say about the poem? Instead of commenting on it as I had

expected, he began to reread it. This time, I decided to listen instead of following along with my

friends book. Had I known what to expect, I would not have been able to focus on the written

words anyway, for all of a sudden, my professor had given the poem life. Passion flowed from

every word as if he was the author himself. I was stunned, frozen in awe. How could my

professor find so much passion in a poem that he had possibly heard for the first time only

seconds before? Chills pulsed through me, subconsciously causing me to close my eyes as if I

were hypnotized by the sound of the poem. Yet, as soon as I closed my eyes, I became self-

conscious and reopened my eyes.

I do not remember when, but early in the poem, I realized that if felt familiar. The passion

with which my professor was reading reminded me of one of my favorite books and movies,

Shakespeares comedy Much Ado About Nothing. After realizing this, I closed my eyes again,

ignoring the self-conscious voice in my head. For a second, I could imagine one of the main

characters, Benedict, reading the poem to himself. Pictured in my mind was Kenneth Branagh

portraying Benedict in the scene where he is trying to write a poem to Beatrice, the woman he

loves, but is incapable of finding the correct words to explain his feelings. Had he come across

this poem, he would have stopped and realized how perfectly it describes his passion. Then I

caught myself, remembering that the poem was written from the perspective of a woman, so I

tried to imagine his rival and love Beatrice reading the poem she had written. However, the
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effect was not as strong. My professor finished reading the poem and I opened my eyes, and

while I knew I would read through other poems, I had already found my poem for this

assignment.

I have loved reading since second grade, when the words on the page finally made

sense to me. However, my love of older literature began in sixth grade when I first watched the

1995 version of Pride and Prejudice. It was my aunt who introduced me to Austen. She had

always been a fan of Austens novels, so when she heard that Chanel 11 was showing the

latest BBC productions of these novels, she told my mom that we should watch it. Very quickly I

learned how much I loved Austens stories. I remember looking expectantly forward to Sunday,

excited for another night where my mom would let me stay up until ten thirty to finish watching

the broadcasts. On the days that we were busy, I worried that we would not arrive home in time

to watch the newest production. Soon after, I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time. My love

of anything Austen quickly grew until I had read all the novels. For one of my birthdays, my

parents gave me a gold trimmed book that contained all of Austens novels. It was so big that it

was quickly dubbed my Austen Bible, which I would bring to school even though it took up most

of my tiny desk. Yet, this love would not have happened if I had not first seen the passion

between the movie characters.

Later in my dorm room, when thinking about the poem, I realized that even more than

Much Ado About Nothing, this poem reminded me of Pride and Prejudice. The poem embodied

the intense and surprising sincerity of Mr. Darcy as well as the undeniable affection of Elizabeth

Bennet. In my mind, I envisioned Darcy confessing his love to Lizzy by saying My love is such

that rivers cannot quench, / Nor aught but love from thee give recompense (7, 8). I saw Lizzy

remembering Darcys awkward and embarrassing proposal and using the lines If ever wife was
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happy in a man, / Compare with me ye women if you can, (3, 4) to explain to her sister Jane

how much he loves her. I heard Darcy telling Lizzy: I prize thy love more than whole mines of

gold, / Or all the riches that the East doth hold, (5, 6). Their love was so complete, and I could

feel this intense love in the poem.

While looking over the poem to make sense of it, I read the poem aloud to myself. I

attempted multiple ways to read the poem, as my professor had and how Benedict or Beatrice

or Darcy or Lizzy would. Yet, as hard as I tried, it sounded just like any other poem I had tried to

read. Even though I had heard the poem read with such passion, I could not recapture that

passion. I felt disappointed because that feeling was my connection with the poem. Without the

feeling, how was I to understand it?

Even though I was unable to recapture the thrilling chills that the poem sent through me,

I was able to look at the poem and still see its beauty, not only from my memory of my

professors rendition, but also through the power behind the rhythm and diction. After I quit

trying to read the poem out loud with similar passion, I went back to what I knew: how to

analyze a poem. I started with the skeleton of the poem. The first technique I saw was that the

rhyme scheme used masculine rhymes such as we/thee and man/can in an aabbccddeeff

pattern. Instantly I felt comforted, for poetry written with true rhymes has always felt more real

to me. The second technique I saw was the use of end stopped lines. Each line was completed

in some way by punctuation, signaling that each line is its own thought, and this poem strings

together those thoughts.

Once I had found the key elements to the skeleton on the poem, I noticed its rhythm. By

quickly counting the syllables through the poem, I found it to be in pentameter. I looked at the

pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables and was surprised to find that it is spondaic.

Knowing that it was a love poem, I would have expected it to have a lighter rhythm that flows

from each line with quick transition. Yet, after remembering how my professor had read it and
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how I had struggled to imitate it, I recalled how the poem had been recited slowly. Instead of the

lightness a typical love poem would have, this poem was heavy, slow and deep. While at first

this seems out of place, I reminded myself that, somehow, this rhythm worked perfectly for the

poem. While it was slow instead of light, it was sincere instead of uncommitted. Also, the

unnatural number of stressed syllables in this poem form a tone of insistence. Once again, I

could picture Darcy looking at Lizzy and admitting to his love with his almost soul-wrenching

insistence.

Finally, I looked at the actual words. At first, I didnt know what to look for. Then I

wondered what words were repeated more often than others. Unsurprisingly, the most common

word was love, which was repeated six times (including in its verb form of loved). Expecting

other frequently used words to be along the range of love, I was confused when the second

most used word was ever, which was repeated four times in the course of the poem. Why

would such a nonessential word be used so many times? When looking back at the poem, I

realized that the first three times it is used are in the phrase If ever, the phrase that starts the

first three lines. Then, the fourth time ever is used is as the very last word. From that

standpoint, ever is the beginning and end of the poem. With this placement, it must be

important. First, it is used to compare her love to those of others. Second, it can emphasize her

love as an unending love that will last forever. Overall, these two words, love and ever, work

together to emphasize her passion and devotion to her husband.

Other words also lead to this interpretation. While the first couple lines are the more

clich proclamations such as if ever two were one and if ever woman was happy in a man,

her choice in diction is balanced with the spondaic rhythm. As stated previously, the spondaic

pattern makes this poem heavier than most love poems, yet these clich terms help incorporate

the expected lighter tone into Bradstreets poem. Other words also create a similar tone. In line

four, she boasts Compare with me ye women if you can. While this is a sincere challenge, it
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also portrays the feminine excitement of the speaker. Similarly, she goes on to say that she

prize[s] his love more than riches. While the word prize means value in this case, it also has

a connotation of having won. This line is also a shifting point in the poem as the tone becomes

even more serious. Bradstreet does this through her use of metaphors, by comparing his love to

gold and riches even more valuable than those of the East. While the riches are valuable, they

are also unreachable. On the other hand, his love is priceless and already hers. Finally, she

compares her own love by saying My love is such that rivers cannot quench, expressing how

her thirst for his love will never be satisfied. The word quench itself sounds like a person

whose mouth is parched. These are intense words and give off an unrivaled feeling of love and

devotion.

Love. Maybe this emotion was my connection to the poem. While I was unable to

reproduce the passion I had heard, I could still hear it in my memory. It was this sound that

brought about the images of two of the most complicated yet sincere love stories I know. It

brought me back to my younger sixth-grade self, a time where I was beginning to mature from

an oblivious child to a teen who longed for something more, something far off in the future.

During this time, all of a sudden classmates were dating. While these friends had these

superficial relationships, I found myself longing for my own, yet I wanted something deeper that

even they did not have. At the same time, I found myself experiencing my first real crush,

giving me a connection to Austens characters and their intense emotions. As I was only in sixth

grade and had no desire for a relationship, Austens novels gave me a love to focus on,

something deep and possible, something to hope for.

While I will never be a poet or even a lover of poetry, it is poems like To My Dear And

Loving Husband that I can appreciate. Having my experience with older English authors such

as Shakespeare and Austen, the poems sincerity and intensity resonate with me and draw me

in. Without the ringing familiarity that the passion produced through the diction and rhythm, the
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poem would not have caught my attention. When print becomes speech, when words become

feeling, when you are able to find a piece of yourself, that is poetry.