The farmers bride

• “when us was wed she turned afraid of love and me and all things human, like the shut of a winters day”
• “When us was wed she turned afraid of love and me and all things human, like the shut of a winter day”

  ”us” inclusive pronoun, farmer still sees them as a couple despite her hostility

  ”wed“ marriage directly affected bride, volta

  ”and” shows how wife’s fear and anxiety developed

  “Winter” simile, coldness towards husband, withdraws quickly
• ”she sleeps up in the attic there alone, poor maid tis but a stair betwixt us”
• “She sleeps up in the attic there alone poor maid tis but a stair betwix us”

  ”attic” shift in power she is above and must descend to be with him, distance increased

  “She sleeps” sibilance, shows helplessness, lack of communication

  “Stair” symbolic of obstacles between them

  “Poor maid” sympathy for bride, mournful tone

  Insurmountable use of enjambement reinforces their separation
• “Shy as a leveret, swift as her, straight and slight as a larch tree, sweet as the first wild violets she to her wild self. but what to me?“
• “Shy as a leveret, swift as her, straight and slight as a larch tree, sweet as the first wild violets she to her wild self. but what to me?“

  simile

  “Leveret” animalistic, introverted, vulnerable, lack of understanding of social expectations

  “sweet” farmer desires her physically yet objectifying her

  “wild” repetition, he thinks she can be passionate, mourning that she doesn’t conform to traditional gender expectations

  rhetorical question, sense of loss, her beauty is futile if she doesn’t recognise the farmer, both lives destroyed by relationship
• form

  dramatic monologue

  Farmers pov

  Punctuation manipulates rhythm

  Varied rhyme
• Structure

  Length of poem represents his agony

  Becomes more despondent
• Compare

  Loves philosophy, both poems frustrated at their desire remaining unrealised

  porphyrias lover, poems characterised as a possessive, objectifying male

  Sonnet 29, desire, longing
• Context

  Written when men possessed women, wife’s behaviour subverts stereotypical behaviour