The Chambermaid's Second Song

The Chambermaid's Second Song - meaning Summary

Resignation to Loveless Intimacy

The poem presents a speaker’s scornful, compressed portrait of a man reduced by lust and failure. Using terse, repetitive lines, it links physical impotence, spiritual emptiness and moral contempt, portraying desire turned dull and degrading. The tone is satirical and bitter; the subject is diminished to a pitiable, insect-like figure whose potency and spirit have departed, leaving only awkward, mechanical performance.