Chanson
Chanson - meaning Summary
Gifts with Dark Consequences
The speaker lists contrasting gifts for a beloved and for themselves, pairing conventional romantic presents with stark, death‑tinged alternatives. Bright images—gold, roses, ivory—are set against hempen rope, hemlock, cypress, and a burial plot. The poem trades courtship rhetoric for irony and resignation, suggesting sacrifice, doomed love, or the speaker’s preference for death over the beloved’s conventional comforts. Repetition of white and funeral plants heightens the morbid contrast.
Read Complete AnalysesA ring of gold and a milk-white dove Are goodly gifts for thee, And a hempen rope for your own love To hang upon a tree. For you a House of Ivory (Roses are white in the rose-bower)! A narrow bed for me to lie (White, O white, is the hemlock flower)! Myrtle and jessamine for you (O the red rose is fair to see)! For me the cypress and the rue (Fairest of all is rose-mary)! For you three lovers of your hand (Green grass where a man lies dead)! For me three paces on the sand (Plant lilies at my head)!
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