Love Songs in Age

This poem discusses how love changes over time, with the focus on a widow, suggesting that although love starts off good, it ends badly. Music sheets are described, symbolizing her memories, and nature is used to show how love changes over time. 

Stanza 1:

• Repetition of the past tense 'kept' shows an emphasis on the past, reflecting her love being in the past. 
• 'One bleached from lying in a sunny place' introduces the idea of the music sheets reflecting memories which have been tinted over time, rein forced by 'one marked in circles by a vase of water'. This could be interpreted as the memories being battered and ruined over time, or alternatively it could be interpreted positively that these memories and indestructible and are merely shaped by life. 'lying' also connotes death linking to her husband. 'circle' suggests the repetitive circle of life. These quotes also show haw things are tarnished and weathered by age, emphasized with the repetition of 'one...'
• 'one mended, when a tidy fit had seized her' demonstrates the fact not all memories are good. 
• 'coloured by her daughter' shows how other people effect you memories and your life. 
• 'so they had waited, till, in widowhood she found them' implies that you only realize what you have when it is gone, as she only realizes what she had with her husband when he died. 
• 'looking for something else' demonstrates how you cannot predict life, and you don't always get what you want from it. 

Stanza 2:

• 'relearning' demonstrates how you forget your memories, but remembering them changes you as it did when they happened. 
• 'frank submissive' is an oxymoron denoting the pain she feels looking back at forgotten pleasures. 
• 'had ushered in' shows how music lets in thoughts and memories. 
• 'the unfailing sense of being young' suggests when you are young you naively feel indestructible, like you will live forever, however age proves otherwise as is shown by the death of her husband.  This also shows how music makes her feel young again. 
• 'spring woken tree' denotes age, time passing and memories  shown by rings inside it linking to 'circles' on the music sheets and the way people wrinkle as they age. 
• 'hidden freshness sung' shows how music makes you feel young, as well as reflecting the forgotten memories that came back fresh. 
• 'certainty of time' demonstrates how the only thing you know about time is that it will pass. Also shows how time promises hope and better things but doesn't necessarily deliver. 
• 'even more' suggests there is something better than nature and youth-love. 

Stanza 3:

• 'glare' demonstrates that love can be painful too, as well as showing its power. 
• 'incipience sailing above' shows how love it different and new and 'fresh'.
• 'promising to solve and satisfy' emphasizes the fact love isnt perfect, and doesnt always make you happy. Also links to the way people always try and understand things. 
• 'unchangeably in order' refers to destiny, as people think the have found their 'happy ever after' but with time and age things do change, and love isnt always as good. 
• 'to pile them back, to cry' shows how love can be pain, although it looks perfect and sometimes it is better to push the memories back rather than face the pain that comes with them. 
• 'it had not done so then, and could not now' demonstrates love can no longer help her, and all love is is unfulfilled promises.