To Belinda
To Belinda - meaning Summary
Love Intrudes on Solitude
The speaker describes being irresistibly drawn out of solitary, virtuous contentment by the presence of a beloved. Moonlit solitude and dreamlike reverie give way to a persistent, overwhelming vision of the loved one. Ordinary pleasures and the charm of nature seem diminished except where the beloved appears. The poem frames love as a consuming force that reorganizes the speaker’s inner life, making moral serenity and natural beauty subordinate to personal attachment.
Read Complete AnalysesOh, why do you draw me, irresistibly, Into all this magnificence? Was I not living happy, virtuously, In midnight’s solitariness? Quietly secluded in my chamber, In the moonlight I lay, Drowned in its shining shower, Into which I’d stray: Dreaming of hours, golden, filled With unmixed delight, Your sweet form now so distilled Deep within my mind. Can it be me that you imprison Among all these lights? Made to hold the insufferable vision Of faces forever in sight? The springtime blossom in the meadow Charms me less by far: Where you are, Angel, is Love, and Virtue, Nature is where you are.
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