The Portrayal of Love in Two Poems

Love is a complex and mysterious concept: It is impossible to truly define, despite the fact that everyone experiences it at one point in this life. Countless men and women have tried to capture love with words, and while they have been able to portray many aspects of it, they always fall short of true definition.

Despite the fact that no piece of literature perfectly captures the concept of love, reading writings about love is useful. The poems “Alms” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and “Variations on the word love” by Margaret Atwood are especially useful for the reader – these poems express two different intepretations of love, which the reader can use to understand the love in his own life.

The poem “Alms” by Edna St. Vincent Millay takes an interesting approach when explicating the speaker’s experience of love. It uses an extended metaphor, portraying the speaker’s heart as a house and her lover’s love as a frigid winter that surrounds it. “My heart is what it was before,/A house where people come and go” (Millay, 1-2) the poem begins, thus establishing the poem’s setting. The speaker’s heart/house is surrounded by frigid weather: “…it is winter with your love,/The sashes are beset with snow” (3-4). Millay continues to use cold weather imagery: “The frost is thick upon the pane” (8); “The leaves are listless on the boughs” (10).

The poem has some similarities to Millay’s “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed”. Literary critic Stacy Carson Hubbord writes about that piece: “Millay’s speaker is a woman with a past that has already taught her the ephemerality of all things” (Hubbord). This observation also applies to “Alms”. The beginning of the poem establishes that the speaker has experienced love several times: “My heart is what it was before,/A house where people come and go” (Millay 1-2). She also says, “I know a winter when it comes:/The leaves are listless on the boughs” (9-10). In this poem, “winter” means cold love. Thus, not only has the speaker experienced love several times, but she has also experienced cold love and recognizes the signs that herald it.

The speaker of this poem does not try to change the cold state of her lover’s love. Rather than fighting the winter when it surrounds her house, she adapts to it: “I watched your love a little while,/And brought my plants into the house” (11-12). She continues to endure the winter: “I water [my plants] and turn them south,/I snap the dead brown from the stem;/But it is winter with your love,/I only tend and water them” (13-16).

The speaker regards her lover’s cold love as unchangable; this is one of the reasons she compares it to winter. Nothing can be done to stop winter; it comes every year and stays until its appointed time of departure. Her lover’s love is the same – irrestable and unchangable – so the speaker does not try to fight it. She knows she must adapt to its coldness, but also knows it will pass.

The speaker experiences two entertaining diversions during the winter that surrounds her heart. The first was “ill-natured” (18) sparrows fighting. The second was the apperance of a hungry stray cat, probably drawn by the altercating birds.

This hungry cat was a cheerful diversion for the speaker: “I loved the beggar that I fed/I cared for what he had to say” (19-20). This visitor soon left, but the speaker wishes for its return and tries to draw it back: “I stood and watched him out of sight:/Today I reach around the door/And set a bowl upon the step” (21-23). She wishes to draw the cat back with a bowl of milk, a common treat for domestic cats.

This cat represents the speaker’s lover before his heart turned cold. The speaker loved her lover when he was warmer to her and wishes his kind self would return. She contributes to try to draw him back, but the winter – his cold love – continues to endure.

The birds represent other men who are romantically interested in, and quarrel over, the speaker. However, the birds (other men) were scared off by her acceptance of the cat (her lover). The speaker wishes to draw them back, but knows that they may not return: “I scatter crumbs upon the sill,/And close the window, – and the birds/May take or leave them, as they will” (26-28). The speaker wishes for comfort, whether it comes from the cat (her lover’s warmer self) or the birds (other men).

Usually love is portrayed as warm and comforting; Millay’s depiction of it as frigid and winter-like is a departure from the norm. However, Millay’s portrayal of love in “Alms” is valuable to the reader. Yes, love can feel cold; however, just as winter turns to spring, cold love can turn to warm.

Margaret Atwood’s poem “Variations on the word love” takes a completely different approach to the concept of love. Rather than regarding love as warm, as many writers do, or as cold, as Millay does, the speaker in Atwood’s poem says she and her lover do not know what love is.

“Variations on the word love” begins by demonstrating how people in general do not know what love is. This is shown by the various incongruous ways we use the word. Atwood’s speaker says we “plug/holes” (Atwood 1-2) with the word “love.” She asy the word “love” is sized appropriately for the “warm/blanks in speech” (3-4) and “those red heart-/shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing/like real hearts” (4-5). She also touches on how love is commercialized: “Add lace/and you can sell/it” (5-7). According to the speaker, love can be used for just about anything: “you can/rub it all over your body and you/can cook with it too” (11-13).

Love is generally accepted as something warm and nice, but like Millay, Atwood challenges this idea. She uses vivid imagery to shock the reader: “How do we know/[love] isn’t what goes on at the cool/debaucheries of slugs under damp/pieces of cardboard?” (13-15). The average person would reply that love is definitely not what happens there. However, this poem helps the reader to recognize: We don’t really know what love is. Since we don’t know what it is, it could very well be happening in that disgusting situation. Atwood continues to use imagery that is generally incongruent with the concept of love: She says that weeds growing between lettuces shout the word “love,” and that soldiers also shout it as they raise blood-stained knives.

According to literary critic Jill Rollins, in Atwood’s poetry “it is the individual’s quest…to define order, meaning, and purpose – to survive” (Rollins). This is evident in the second stanza, where Atwood’s speaker focuses on how love applies to herself and her lover personally. The speaker is aware that she and her lover are tiny people in an infinite universe and tdhat the word “love” does not help them find their place within it: “[love] has only/four letters, too sparse/to fill those deep bare/vacuums between the stars/that press on us with their deafness” (24-27). Yet, despite the fact that love is so ambiguous and seemingly limited, Atwood’s speaker accepts it and attempts to express what it is to her: “…a single/vowel in this metallic/silence, a mouth that says/O again and again in wonder/and pain, a breath, a finger/grip on a cliffside” (31-36). Atwood’s speaker believes love can either be resisted or surrendered to; considering the imagery of a finger’s grip on the edge of a cliff, the speaker most likely believes that surrender to love is inevitable.

The concept of love is incredibly ambiguous. Love can be cold, as Millay potrays it, or simulataneously commercialized, ambiguous, and insufficient, as Atwood portrays it. However, “love” is the only word avaliable to describe a deep, intense emotional bond between two people. It is difficult, if not impossible, to comprehend, but the poem “Alms” by Edna St. Vincent Millay and “Variations on the word love” by Margaret Atwood can hel pthe reader understand the concept as far as it is comprehensible.

Explicated Poems

Alms
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My heart is what it was before,
A house where poeple come and go;
But it is winter with your love,
The sashes are beset with snow.

I light the lamp and lay the cloth,
I blow the coals to blaze again;
But it is winter with your love,
The frost is thick upon the pane.

I know a winter when it comes:
The leaves are listless on the boughs;
I watched your love a little while,
And brought my plants into the house.

I water them and turn them south,
I snap the dead brown from the stem;
But it is winter with your love,
I only tend and water them.

There was a time I stood and watched
The small, ill-natured sparrows’ fray;
I loved the beggar that I fed,
I cared for what he had to say,

I stood and watched him out of sight:
Today I reach around the door
And set a bowl upon the step;
My heart is what it was before,

But it is winter wtih your love;
I scatter crumbs upon the sill,
And close the window, – and the birds
May take or leave them, as they will.

~

Variations on the word love
by Margaret Atwood

This is a word we use to plug
holes with. It’s the right size for those warm
blanks in speech, for those red heart-
shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing
like real hearts. Add lace
and you can sell
it. We insert it also in the one empty
space on the printed form
that comes with no instructions. There are whole
magazines with not much in them
but the word love, you can
rub it all over your body and you
can cook with it too. How do we know
it isn’t what goes on at the cool
debaucheries of slugs under damp
pieces of cardboard? As for the weed-
seedlings nosing their tough snouts up
among the lettuces, they shout it.
Love! Love! sing the soldiers, raising
their glittering knives in salute.

Then there’s the two
of us. This word
is far too short for us, it has only
four letters, too sparse
to fill those deep bare
vacuums between the stars
that press on us with their deafness.
It’s not love we don’t wish
to fall into, but that fear.
this word is not enough but it will
have to do. It’s a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffiside. You can
hold on or let go.