Comparing Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd To His Love

Christopher Marlowe’s, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” is a beautiful poem written in 1599 about a wholehearted lover who promises his beloved to join him to have a prosperous and blissful future. Marlowe’s poem has a gentle and harmonious tone and appeals to all of the senses except taste. C. Day Lewis’s, “Song”, written in 1935, follows Marlowe’s, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”, but Lewis brings the shepherd to a modern twentieth century time and makes reality the focus. He emphasizes the slap you get when you experience the difficult reality. Both speakers present their individual views on what can be made from their love and both also create different request to love with differences in what they will offer or expect. In Marlowe’s

The setting is romantic and simple. His imagery gives you the emotion of eternal spring and happiness. The speaker starts off by requesting his beloved to have a blissful future with him, “Come live with me and be my love / And we will all the pleasures prove” (1-2).He then starts to describe what pleasures they will have together, “And we will sit upon the Rocks / Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks” (5-6).He imagines this beautiful life with his beloved and in his environment, what they could be doing. The speaker is trying to persuade her of the simple life they could have just spending time sitting and watching the sheep. The speaker of Marlowe’s poem continues spilling out his love and affection by granting her material items such as an array of flowers. He is offering these material items anticipating that she will give him her love in return. On the other hand, C. Day Lewis the “Song” is set in a more urban, hardship realistic setting. The speaker states “Of peace and plenty, bed and board /that chance employment may afford”, which is saying that they will have what they need but they are going to have to work hard for it because life in this time was difficult and depressing. He emphasizes his love by saying that they will live a rather very difficult life together but he believes this will tempt his beloved. He believes if they can live through this suffering and

He promises his love, “A gown made of the finest wool / Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;”(13-14) as well as "Fair lines slippers for the cold / With buckles of the purest gold" (15-16) to grasp his loves attention and convince her that he is willing to give her all these precious material items. The speaker entices his love with peaceful images of “By shallow Rivers to whose falls /Melodious birds sing Madrigals.” (7-8) which is convincing her of this everlasting peaceful nature, those birds will be singing love songs for them, as if spring were to never end. All of his material gifts are coming from nature so it seems that it could decay and spring will eventually end so what else can he promise his love to prove forever. He promises her a life full of whatever she desires and a simple, relaxing life. The speaker in "Song" offers the grim reality in the twentieth century. He emphasizes that love will be created from the tough circumstances they will endure. He gives the truth and although it isn’t necessary pleasant, living through the challenges will bring them at a love unbreakable. Lewis states “Be shod with pain: not silken dress / But toil shall tire thy loveliness” (11-12), which means she will experience pain and lose her beauty from all of the work she will have to endure. “Be shod with pain:..”(11) Which is referring to shod which is on the foot of a horse, it is used