“The Sun Rising” by John Donne, “On Monsieur’s Departure”

"So deep in luve am I," There have been many poems which have been written throughout the ages that have expressed love from very simple stanzas to very complex long poems. This extract which is from "A red, red rose" shows one of the many different aspects of love, that it is eternal and is extremely powerful and potent enough to make a person fall so deeply in love, nothing else can achieve this effect.There are many different aspects of love, the sexual side of love, the loss of someone you love, continual love, eternal love, the power of love and many different others. There are a huge range of poems that concern themselves about love but I have chosen just three, which are, "The Sun Rising" by John Donne, "On Monsieur's Departure" attributed to Queen Elizabeth I and "A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns.All of these poems have the idea of love in them but they all have different aspects of love, in The Sun Rising the poet explores the sexual side of love, he loves a girl and they make love at night, it also explores the power of love, that it is more powerful than the sun itself, and it makes them feel as though they are at the centre of the universe, it transcends time and there are no barriers to what they can do, but in On Monsieur's Departure there is a different aspect of love, Elizabeth I has written the poem to talk about the loss of someone she loves and how she regrets it so much, the person she lost is the Duke of Angeau, who was her suitor and she fell in love with him, but he was a Catholic and they were destined to stay apart because he was a Catholic.

She is unhappy and she misses him. Robert Burns who wrote the poem "A Red, Red Rose" explores the aspect of eternal love, that he will love someone until he dies "while the sands o' life run," a form of imagery which is about the sand timer of life. It is an eternal love and will never die, it is also a beautiful, perfect love as well and shows the strength of love, that he will continue to love her forever, there are no barriers and nothing can stop him loving her, again it shows the idea that love transcends time.There are many poetic techniques used in all three of the poems, and imagery is used a lot in them to describe the aspects of love especially in "A Red, Red Rose," there is a large amount of imagery in it, "O I will love thee still my dear, while the sands o' life shall run. " The poet Burns is saying that he will love the woman that the poem is about forever and will lover still even though he is dying, the sands of time signify death and the amount of time you have for your life until you die, "till a' the seas gang dry," is another image in the poem, this one saying that he will love her until the seas dry up, there are also other images that are to do with the end of the world, so he is saying that he will love her until the end of the world.

The sun rising also uses imagery to put across the different aspects of love, these images I believe are sexually related, the image of his bed being the centre of the universe, with everything moving around it including the sun, he uses medieval cosmology as well. Te bed is related to sex and passion and how it is the focus of his life and how he doesn't want to leave his girl. It is the centre of his universe. There is less imagery in On Monsieur's Departure, but there is some relating to the character of Queen Elizabeth, "I am soft and made of melting snow," this piece of imagery shows Elizabeth as a snowman, soft and gentle in her love yet also incredibly cold and harsh as well. Imagery is used a lot in all three poems and describes very well all of the different types of love and does this in detail.

Rhythm and rhyming is used in all three poems to give a more romantic and melodious feeling to the poems. A red, red rose rarely uses words which are more than one syllable long, this affects the rhythm of the poem and makes it simpler and easier to read, it also gives it a romantic air to it. It also used alternate rhyming couplets, which affects the way it is read out, it makes it sound a lot more melodious and nicer to read. This is the same with the other two poems; they both have an alternate rhyming couplet some which are two lines apart and there are some rhyming couplets as well, this adds to the melody of the poem and makes it much nicer to read.

On Monsieur's Departure uses Iambic pentameters, which makes it more sophisticated which reflects on the poem, which is more sombre and mournful compared to the other two, it also reflects Elizabeth's nature as well, very complex. A red, red rose uses quatrain stanzas, 4 stanzas which are only 4 lines long, these are simple and to the point, it is the simplest of the 3 poems and is very easy to read. It is memorable and easy to read, because of the Scottish accent, it makes it more interesting. The other two poems have a different form and are a lot more difficult to read and understand; also they use old English as well. All of the poems were done in the first person narrative voice; all of them are talking about their love.The word "I" and other personal pronouns are used a lot in On Monsieur's departure and has a lot of different emotions inside of her, love and hate, mute and prate, freeze and burn to name but a few, there are many more opposites or contrasts in this poem, it gives the idea that Elizabeth's emotions are high then low and shows that she misses the Duke and needs him and loves him.

The opposites naturally seem to pair together as well. Alliteration and assonance is used in all three poems, this is used to emphasize a particular word or phrase, "Thine age asks ease," the letter a is repeated three times, "To warm the World," is another form of alliteration used, and this one is talking about the duties of the sun, not to bother the lovers but to warm the world. "A Red, Red rose is another piece of repetition used as well, it emphasizes that the rose is perfect like their love as well, and the colour red is the colour of passion.Repetition is used in A Red, Red rose, the word love is used a lot, and there are a lot of romantic words in it as well. Elision is used because of the Scottish accent, letters are missed out in parts of the words, and this helps with the rhythm and makes it more fluid.

Metaphors and similes are used in all three of the poems, "my loves like the melody sweetly played in tune, this shows that his love is perfect and is also beautiful as well. A metaphor in On Monsieur's departure is "I freeze and yet am burned," this is saying that her emotion are exploding out of her yet she can't be frozen or burned at the same time. The language that the poets use help make he poems better.Individual word choices attribute to the whole poem and make it better and more interesting, in The sun rising the word "India" is used and it has a double meaning, the first one refers to the Indias of spice, the east and the West Indies and the wealth they have, also the word India refers to the name of the girl that the man loves, the word fits in to the poem by it meaning that the Man's India is worth more than the Spice Indias.

The word "eclipse" is also an important word, it sums up one of the stanzas, saying that the man could block off the sun with a wink of his eyelids so he has complete control of the sun, but he doesn't want to do this because he will lose sight of his girl and he doesn't want that to happen.In On Monsieur's Departure a piece of language that sums up the whole stanza is "from myself another self I turned," this describes the two sides of Elizabeth I, she is a gentle, soft and caring woman yet she has to be seen as hard as iron to the public because she is the Queen and has to look strong so her enemies do not attack her. Language is used to enhance the ideas of love in all three of the poems. All three poems have a main focus of love, each of the three writers have used many different poetic techniques and different forms of language to enhance their chosen form of love. Thy have explored the ideas that love is eternal, the sexual side of love and the loss of someone you love.

They are all different and use different styles yet they are all similar because they talk about love, and it is very clear that they are all centred on different aspects of love.