For You My Love

For You My Love - meaning Summary

Longing Amid Marketplaces

The speaker describes buying a bird, a flower, and a heavy chain at different markets as gifts for a beloved. These purchases move from light and tender to heavy and controlling, culminating in a visit to a slave market where the speaker searches for the beloved but cannot find them. The poem contrasts commodity exchange with the failure to locate the person desired, suggesting that presence and mutual consent cannot be obtained by buying. It raises themes of longing, possession, and the limits of material substitutes for human connection.