Chloris Requesting Me to Give Her Spray of a Sloe
written in 1794
Chloris Requesting Me to Give Her Spray of a Sloe - meaning Summary
Love Avoids Causing Harm
This short lyric presents a speaker who refuses Chloris's request for a sprig of white-blossomed sloe because it would place a thorn on her breast. The refusal is expressed in exaggerated, devotional terms — "let me perish for ever" — which frames the speaker's love as protective and self-sacrificing. The poem compresses a moral choice about causing pain into a single moment, using the sloe and its thorn as a clear emblem of the risks of love and courtship.
Read Complete AnalysesFrom the white-blossom'd sloe, my dear Chloris requested A sprig, her fair breast to adorn: No, by Heavens! I replied, let me perish for ever, Ere I plant in that bosom a thorn!
Feel free to be first to leave comment.