If Thou Must Love Me by - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I. (i) The words let it be for nought mean let it be for nothing. The speakers wants to tell her lover
not to love her for any particular reason. The speaker wants her lover to love her for loves sake
only.
(ii)She does not want to be loved for her smile, her looks or for her gentle voice.
(iii)She does not want her lover to love her for particular traits like her appearance and good looks
because these traits will fade with the passage of time.
(iv)
(a) a trick of thought means a particular way of thinking, which may mislead her lover.
(b) A sense of pleasant ease on such a day means the qualities which may give a sense of comfort to
her lover on a particular day.
(v)Cumulative listing is a technique of listing similar ideas to
explain or add examples to a particular statement. The example of cumulative listing in the given
extract is:
The speaker enumerates her physical characteristics her smile, her looks and her gentle way of
speaking for which she does not want to be loved, as these characteristics are changeable and not
ever lasting.

II.(i) these things refer to the traits like her smile, her looks and her gentle way of speaking, for
which the speaker does not want her lover to love her.

(ii)By the statement, may/Be changed, or change for thee, the speaker wants to tell her lover not
to love her for the traits like her smile, her looks or her way of speaking as these traits may change
with the passage of time or his appreciation of these traits would fade in their appeal for him.

(iii) The speaker does not want to be affected by these changes because there is much more to love
than these changeable traits. She wants to be loved for true love and not her superficial qualities
that would change with the passage of time.

(iv) The theme of the poem is unconditional love. In the poem, the speaker asks her lover not to love
her for the qualities like her beautiful smile, her looks or her gentle voice. She recognises that
though these qualities may be endearing to him, but would fade away in their appeal to him with
the passage of time. However, true love is unconditional and not dependent on such changeable
physical traits. She wants his love for her should be eternal.

(v) The statement love, so wrought/May be unwrought so means that love that is based on
changeable traits may change or diminish with the changes in these traits with the passage of time.
Here, the speaker feels that if her lover loves her for only those traits, his love for her would
diminish, when her physical traits would fade away.

III.(i) The words dear pity refer to the pity the speakers lover feels for her.
The words wiping my cheeks dry means the act of wiping off tears from my cheeks. Here, the
speaker wants to tell her lover that she does not want to be loved out of pity. She says that she
might not cry and since there would be no tears to be wiped off from her cheeks, she may not be
able to produce pity for her in her lover.

(ii) The word creature is used here for the speaker. It is so called to compare here position with
something similar like a whimpering dog or a flopping bird, which instantly invokes pity in human
beings.
(iii) If the creature forgets to weep, the lover would not feel any pity for her. This is because she
wont have any tears to be wiped off from her cheeks and so would not be able to induce any pity
for herself in her lover.
(iv) The word Thy is used for the speakers lover.
(v) The poet does not want to be loved out of pity because she believes that pity on her tears will be
lost once she is consoled.

IV.(i) The poet wants to be loved for loves sake only because in that way she will always be loved no
matter what qualities of her fade away with time.

(ii)The words through loves eternity mean love that is eternal or ever lasting. The speaker wants
that her lovers love for her should be eternal.

(iii) Love has been personified in these lines by giving love, humanly traits such as possession (loves
sake) and a time frame (loves eternity).

(iv) The speaker of the poem, a woman, demands equal status with a man by asking her lover not to
love her for her physical attributes or out of pity but for what she is a living, thinking human
being.

(v)The things which I like in the poem are the following:

(a) The speakers demand for unconditional love, the love which is not based on any superficial
qualities that fade away with the passage of time but the love which is eternal.
(b) The speakers demand for equal status with men. She does not want to be loved out of pity but
for what she is a living, thinking human being.

(vi) The poem, If Thou Must Love Me is a sonnet because:

(a) it comprises fourteen lines with a formal rhyming scheme in iambic pentameter, i.e.,
abba/abba/cdc/dc [d/e].
(b) it is a hybrid of both Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets. In rhyming scheme, it is composed
of a Petrarchan octet (eight lines) with the rhyming scheme abba abba and sestet (six lines) with the
rhyming scheme cdcdcd or cdecde. However, in its content, it follows the Shakespearean structure
of three quatrains (4 + 4 + 4 = 12 lines) and the final resolving couplets.