Poetry, a realm where emotion, intellect, and artistic expression meet, offers an endless variety of forms and structures to explore. Among these, blank verse stands out for its timeless elegance and versatility. Defined as unrhymed iambic pentameter, blank verse has been favored by numerous poets throughout history, from Shakespeare to Milton. Unlike rhymed verse, blank verse offers poets the freedom to explore language, rhythm, and meaning without the constraint of rhyme, while maintaining a rhythmic regularity that enhances the emotional intensity of the work.
In this article, we will explore how blank verse has been used to convey the complex and profound emotions of love. Through an analysis of eleven blank verse poems, we will examine how poets use this form to delve into love’s various facets, from the tender to the tragic. Each poem will be discussed with excerpts and a deep dive into the emotional and structural aspects of the writing, exploring how the form shapes the expression of love in each case.
1. William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:”
While Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 is technically a sonnet and not a traditional blank verse poem, its use of iambic pentameter is crucial in understanding the meter’s impact on the expression of love. The poem opens with a rhetorical question, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” immediately setting up a comparison between the beloved and a summer’s day, which symbolizes warmth, beauty, and vitality. The use of iambic pentameter here creates a rhythmic flow that mirrors the speaker’s contemplative tone.
The stability of the iambic pentameter contrasts with the theme of the fleeting nature of beauty, especially as the poem progresses. Shakespeare’s mastery of blank verse allows the idea of love’s eternal nature to be framed within the constraints of temporal beauty, making the speaker’s love seem more eternal and unchanging. Though not entirely blank verse in form, this poem demonstrates the use of meter to elevate the theme of love.
2. Christopher Marlowe’s The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
“Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.”
Marlowe’s famous pastoral poem is one of the best examples of love poetry in blank verse. The simplicity of the meter in The Passionate Shepherd to His Love is essential to the poem’s charm. The pastoral setting and the direct appeal of the speaker to his lover are both conveyed through the soft and regular rhythm of the blank verse. By using this meter, Marlowe elevates the idea of love as something natural, fluid, and harmonious with nature.
The blank verse offers a conversational yet elevated tone, which makes the shepherd’s invitation to his beloved feel personal yet grand, underscoring the idealized world he wishes to create with his lover. The meter enhances the lyrical nature of the invitation and imbues it with a sense of timelessness, making the love presented in the poem seem both realistic and unattainable at once.
3. John Milton’s Paradise Lost (Excerpts on Love)
“Hail holy Light, offspring of Heaven firstborn,
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam!
May I express thee unblam’d? since God is Light,
And never but in unapproached Light
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.”
Though Paradise Lost is not traditionally considered a poem about romantic love, Milton’s treatment of love between Adam and Eve is central to the text. The language of love in the epic is characterized by a deep, philosophical exploration of divine love, human love, and the interrelationship between the two. Milton’s use of blank verse here serves as a tool for conveying the intellectual and theological underpinnings of love, particularly the love between human beings and God.
The use of iambic pentameter in Paradise Lost creates a flowing and formal rhythm that mirrors the grandeur of the narrative. The blank verse gives the poem a serious, contemplative tone, which is essential to conveying the spiritual depth of the love between Adam and Eve and the tragic consequences of their fall from grace. Milton’s blend of blank verse with metaphysical themes about love and freedom reveals the potential of the form to address both personal and cosmic dimensions of love.
4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Haunted Houses
“All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors,
The departed have passed, and still walk abroad.
The commonest of them, the most commonplace,
And the most subtle, are haunted houses.”
In Haunted Houses, Longfellow explores the theme of love and loss through the blank verse form. The poem reflects on the idea that all homes are haunted by the memories and spirits of those who have lived and loved within them. By using blank verse, Longfellow allows the rhythm of the poem to gradually build a sense of inevitability, reflecting the inescapable nature of loss in love.
The blank verse meter here lends an elegiac tone to the poem, and its regular rhythm reinforces the weight of memory. The repetition of “haunted houses” becomes more profound with each line, echoing the haunting presence of past loves. The formal structure of the poem contrasts with the emotional weight of love’s passage, creating a tension that speaks to the permanence of love even in the face of death.
5. Robert Frost’s The Death of the Hired Man
“Warren, I wish you’d look at the fire’s glow.
I think this is the house where they should lie.”
I said, “You are right, it is his house of death,
But can we share it here?” And so we turned.”
Frost’s The Death of the Hired Man is an exploration of love’s complexities, particularly the relationship between a married couple as they reflect on the life and death of a hired man who once worked for them. In this dialogue-driven narrative, Frost uses blank verse to allow the speech to flow naturally while still maintaining the rhythm and gravitas that blank verse provides.
The meter of the poem mirrors the cyclical nature of life and death, and it is in the way the characters communicate their love for the hired man and their shared past that the blank verse amplifies the emotional resonance. The careful arrangement of the unrhymed lines allows for moments of tension and release, enhancing the intimacy of the poem’s reflections on love and responsibility.
6. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Revolt of Islam (Excerpt on Love and Rebellion)
“She is a woman, and her spirit flies
In beauty over the wide lands of air,
Bright as the evening star; in her wide eyes
Is the pure light of Heaven, and she moves
Like a free wind, breathing with the same motion
That stirs the flowers and the eternal trees.”
In The Revolt of Islam, Shelley explores the intersection of love, rebellion, and freedom. The blank verse here is used to elevate the speaker’s portrayal of the woman as both a symbol of personal and political freedom. Shelley’s idealized depiction of love here is powerful because the blank verse mirrors the untamed quality of the love he describes. The meter allows the speaker to exalt the woman’s character and spirit, making the poem both a tribute to love and a revolutionary call to freedom.
The free-flowing rhythm of the blank verse complements the passionate language, giving the poem a sense of fluidity and grandeur that emphasizes the spiritual and political implications of love. Shelley’s use of meter also allows for shifts in tone, enabling him to transition from personal admiration to larger philosophical musings about love’s power in society.
7. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese (Excerpts on Love)
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.”
While Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese is a collection of sonnets, her use of blank verse in several poems shows how this form can convey profound romantic emotion. The opening line of Sonnet 43 is one of the most famous expressions of love in English literature, and its use of the blank verse-like meter reinforces the depth of the speaker’s feelings. The regularity of the meter in this sonnet enhances the power of the rhetorical device—counting the many ways in which the speaker loves.
Browning’s ability to maintain a formal, almost sacred, rhythm while articulating such an intimate expression of love is what makes the blank verse in this poem particularly effective. The meter allows the reader to feel the intensity of the speaker’s devotion as the poem builds to its conclusion, where the love described transcends the limitations of the physical world.
8. William Wordsworth’s The Prelude (Excerpts on Love and Nature)
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”
In The Prelude, Wordsworth combines the themes of nature, spirituality, and love. While the poem is more about the love of nature than romantic love, the emotional weight carried through the blank verse is undeniable. Wordsworth’s meditation on nature as a source of solace and inspiration is elevated by the fluidity of the iambic pentameter, allowing the reader to feel the same awe and reverence the poet experiences.
The use of blank verse mirrors the natural flow of thought and emotion, guiding the reader through the poet’s evolving feelings toward the natural world. The balance between the natural and the sublime gives the poem its timeless appeal, demonstrating how blank verse can convey a complex, multifaceted love.
9. Tennyson’s In Memoriam (Excerpts on Love and Loss)
“Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.”
Tennyson’s In Memoriam explores grief, love, and the search for solace in the face of death. The poem’s use of blank verse heightens the emotional intensity of its themes, allowing the speaker’s sorrow and longing to resonate deeply. The regular rhythm of the verse contrasts with the turbulence of the emotions described, emphasizing the tension between the speaker’s internal conflict and the inevitable passing of time.
The poem’s reflection on love in the context of loss is made all the more poignant by the blank verse, which provides a steady, almost meditative pace, allowing the poet’s anguish to unfold slowly. The meter mirrors the passage of time, creating a rhythm that evokes both sorrow and the eventual acceptance of loss.
10. W.B. Yeats’s The Song of Wandering Aengus
“I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread.”
In Yeats’s The Song of Wandering Aengus, blank verse is used to tell a story of longing and desire, reflecting a kind of unattainable love. The fluidity of the meter serves to reinforce the speaker’s quest for the woman he loves, which seems to be both physical and spiritual. Yeats’s use of blank verse lends the poem a dreamlike quality, with the speaker’s emotional journey mirrored in the flowing rhythms of the verse.
This constant ebb and flow of the meter builds a sense of desire and yearning that is central to the poem’s theme. The blank verse amplifies the feeling of restlessness and eternal searching, creating a powerful rhythm that mirrors the search for love that is, in the end, unfulfilled.
11. Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee
“But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.”
Poe’s Annabel Lee is a tragic exploration of love and loss, filled with passion and mourning. The use of blank verse in this poem enhances its lyrical quality, elevating the intensity of the speaker’s emotions. The meter is particularly effective in echoing the cyclical nature of the speaker’s grief and the eternal connection he feels with Annabel Lee, even after death.
The repetition of “But we loved with a love” serves as a refrain throughout the poem, reinforcing the strength of the bond between the lovers. The blank verse here becomes a vehicle for the speaker’s obsession, amplifying his declaration of love into something almost supernatural, beyond the reach of time and death.
Conclusion
Through these eleven poems, we can see that blank verse provides a powerful medium for the exploration of love in all its forms: from the youthful optimism of The Passionate Shepherd to the profound grief in In Memoriam, and the eternal longing in Annabel Lee. The unyielding structure of blank verse allows poets to express both the simplicity and complexity of love, enhancing its emotional resonance. Whether employed for the idealized love of nature or the intimate depths of romantic affection, blank verse remains a timeless and versatile form that continues to shape how we think about and feel love through the written word.
