The opening line of this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is in different meter than the poem as a whole, emphasizing the question seen in the title, while the iambic pentameter of the poem as a whole provides the answers to the question in a lengthy listing. The first word of the poem is given an accent a dactylic foot, while the next is a trochee. After that, the remainder of the line is iambic. The regularity of the rest of the poem links each line in terms of meaning--each line is an answer to the initial question, and the accretion of all these lines indicates how deep the love of the poet for the subject addressed really is. The poem is a sonnet and follows the sonnet pattern, with fourteen lines. This is an Italian sonnet and does not end in the couplet that a Shakespearian sonnet would. The theme of the work is love, and the list offered shows how great this particular love is. The tone is matter-of-fact rather than passionate, however, and the list method contributes to this tone.
Jarold Ramsey's poem is also a love poem, and here the poet uses as a symbol the mahogany stick that is used to tally up the sum of the married life of this husband and wife. Indeed, the stick comes to symbolize that life, and as the life proceeds toward its end, the stick becomes smaller and smaller as the husband whittles it away, engraving in the wood the events of the life of he and his wife.
The strength of love is made into a solid image in the form of the stick, something that offers support. The stick is also memory, for the memories of the two people are carved into it. In the poem, the husband is pointing out different memories on the curve of the stick, and all the facets of life are represented--birth, death, marriage, joy, sadness, and the events in the wider world that affect every person, from war to the fall of great men and women. The stick symbolizes life, and the poem is an address from husband to wife, celebr...