Love and Sorrow
Love and Sorrow - meaning Summary
Split Heart, Divided Light
The speaker addresses Almeida and explains that she possesses only half his heart because bitter grief occupies the other half. He uses light and shadow imagery: her beauty is his heart’s day while grief is its night, and both cannot exist in the same place. He imagines a translucent heart where light would pass through, then accepts a state of "half-light, half-shadow," linking true love to the capacity to weep.
Read Complete AnalysesO Maiden, fresher than the first green leaf With which the fearful springtide flecks the lea, Weep not, Almeida, that I said to thee That thou hast half my heart, for bitter grief Doth hold the other half in sovranty. Thou art my heart’s sun in love’s crystalline: Yet on both sides at once thou canst not shine: Thine is the bright side of my heart, and thine My heart’s day, but the shadow of my heart, Issue of its own substance, my heart’s night Thou canst not lighten even with thy light, All powerful in beauty as thou art. Almeida, if my heart were substanceless, Then might thy rays pass thro’ to the other side, So swiftly, that they nowhere would abide, But lose themselves in utter emptiness. Half-light, half-shadow, let my spirit sleep; They never learnt to love who never knew to weep.
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