Love's Philosophy - P.B. Shelly

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me? 

POETIC/LITERARY DEVICES

1.      Personification

·         Fountains mingle with the river

·         Winds of heaven mix forever with a sweet emotion

·         The mountains kiss high heaven

·         The waves clasps one another

·         Moonbeams kiss the sea

2.      Metaphors

·         No sister flower could be forgiven if it disdained its brother- it describes that no man should go against one another for a brother will look on to another brother.

3.      Rhetorical question

·         If thou kiss not me?- simply says that what is the use of all the relationships in the nature worth if you’re not with me (a man and woman’s relationship)

STANZA BY STANZA ANALYSIS

STANZA 1: P. B. Shelly expresses that everything in the nature are in union. “The fountains mingle with the river and the rivers with the ocean”. He wants to have an intimate relationship with the girl. He claims that the world is held by a “law divine” so nothing in the world is single. He’s advocating his intention on having a relationship with her.

STANZA 2: The mountains are touching high heaven and the waves clasps one another. He means that every nature is embracing each other. No man can be forgiven if he hates another man. He’s proposing that all men should be in a good term with each other. He said that what is the use of nature embracing each other if you(lover) don’t reciprocate my love?

CRITICAL APPRECIATION

What the author is trying to imply is that love is in vain if it’s a ‘one-sided’ love. Love is interdependent. There is also a message that the natural world is on the side of love. The thing that Shelly was stressing on was that love and everything about and in it is sweet. But if it’s only a one-sided love or affection, then it would be all worthless. Shelly uses nature mingling with each other (divine thing) to press on that a man and woman should be together, that nature and man are destined to have a pair.

READING MATERIAL

This is a simple little love poem in two 8-line stanzas with an ABABCDCD rhyme scheme. It is, at heart, a plea for his girlfriend to kiss him, but his persuasion takes the form of pointing to a range of natural and cosmic conjunctions that involve, on a "macro" scale, what he wishes to do on a "micro" one. The first stanza begins:

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;

The logic points, in his view, to the inevitability of mingling and mixing "by a law divine" which applies to what his girlfriend should do as well, because "Nothing in the world is single".

The second stanza is, in effect, a repetition of the first, although here "mingle" and "mix" are replaced by "kiss" and "clasp" as the keywords. It should also be noted that the examples move up a gear from rivers and winds to sunlight and moonlight in the lines:

And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;-

Shelley does not mince his words when he relates mountains kissing the sky and moonbeams kissing the sea directly to his personal circumstances in the final lines:

What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me? 

As a "philosophy", Shelley's poem might lack something in terms of its rigour, especially as his argument from the universal to the specific is logically unsound, but that does not matter when the poem is considered for what it is, namely a cleverly constructed love poem that is typical of its kind in that the lover's regard of the universe is entirely coloured by his emotions. He can see nothing around him that does not back up his argument and ignores everything that does not, of which there would be plenty of examples if he chose to look for them.

There is also the message that the natural world is on the side of love, which is true in a sense but not quite the one that Shelley is stressing here. For him, the mingling, clasping and kissing is "sweet work" that would be worthless if his girlfriend does not succumb to him. This is, of course, an absurd position to take but it is again typical of someone who is deeply in love and single-minded in their quest.

This short poem throws so many examples at the reader that he or she might almost be taken in by its faulty logic. If the reader is in the throes of love themselves, they might indeed accept the argument. This is, after all, "Love's Philosophy", which does not have to follow the rules that apply in all other circumstances. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.helium.com/items/2300739-poetry-analysis-loves-philosophy-by-percy-bysshe-shelley