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The Passionate Shepherd To His Love And The Nymph's Respond

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The two poems, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love and The Nymph’s Respond to the Shepherd are two poems that have to do with love, nature, time, and materialistic items, but they each have different views of the topic. The poem the Shepherd has a keen view of love that lasts forever, “The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing, For thy delight each May morning” (v. 21-22). The shepherd believes that love is forever like the nature and the seasons. The shepherd also has a materialistic view on love, “A gown made of the finest wool, Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold” (v.13-16). Materials are used as tokens of love in the shepherd’s eyes. The shepherd wants to live in the moment and not think about the future when it comes to love and the way he feels, “For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love” (v.22-24), this also shows that …show more content…
The Nymph believes love is uncertain and irresolute, “Has joy no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move” (v.22-23). The future is unsettling for the Nymph, she believes nature will die and pass away, “The flowers do fade, and wanton fields, To wayward winter reckoning yields” (v.9-10). The Nymph thinks materialistic gifts will wither away over time and that those gifts will not win her love over, “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,” (v. 13-16). Although the two poems have differences in views of love and nature, they are based around the same concepts. The shepherd shows that he is centered around love and nature. The nymph has a negative view of love lasting and she thinks that love is temporary like the

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