Sample Essays


1. Love is not love if it changes

Love is never shaken, not even by the fiercest storms

Love is like the stars that are invaluable

Time cannot destroy love

And love exists 'till the end of the world.

If it is not true. 

Then no man has and never will have loved.


The poem is about how determined and unchanged 

the speaker's love, even when there's a storm or 

when time is there to examine it. He refers to love as 

stars that hang ever so high in the sky, as an ever-

fixed mark that stands steadily still forever. (Michelle) 

2. In the first quatrain the speaker says, " love is 

not love" first and then tells the reason. This creates 

curiosity and suspicion. Isn't this poem supposed to 

be about love? Why does he say so? If the speakerr 

says "If love alters when it alteration finds, it is not 

love." The feeling won't be so strong. The effect is 

the same in the second quatrain wheree the speaker 

compared love to an ever-fixed mark and stars. He

explians the reason after the compassion. (Michelle) 
2. The syntax the speaker uses is special. The 

speaker always gives a definition to love and prove 

them by some concret images. For example, in the 

second stanza, he says " it is an ever-fixed mark" 

before he expresses why love is ever-fixed. Then 

he compares love with what isn't shaken on 

tempest, and he also symbolizes love to "the star." 

(Nancy)

3. The structure of this poem comes with four 

lines a periods and finally two line a period. In fact, love is very symbolic. We can not see it, touch it, 

nor smell it. But we can feel it. in order to let 

readerrs "feel" the lovee, the speaker uses clear 

and concret thing to compare with love. That makes 

love vivid for us to feel. In every period(stanza) we 

have a comparison to get a clear image about what 

the speaker wants to say. (Nancy)

3. The feeling develops stronger and stronger as we 

read on. In the first quatrain the speaker talks about

what true love is: It is true when it does'nt change. In 

the second, he tells us how determined and strong his 

love is: It's not only unchangeable, it's unshaken in 

every condition and it shines forever like a star.

Time is the most skillful killer, but in the third quatrain 

he says his love won't give way to time. In the last 

sentence he even pledges that his love will remain the 

same 'till the end of time! In the last two lines of the 

whole sonnet, he is very definite and confident that he 

will never change beacuse if he changes then no 

man's love is real. Maybe the listener is still 

suspicious when she reads the third quatrain. (Michelle)

4. The situation might be the speaker, probably a 

young man is proposing to a young woman ( the 

listener) who loves the young man bery much. The 

more a person loves, the more she fears getting hurt, 

so she isn't so sure about his love. The man knows 

about her fear and thus tries to convince her.

The reason why I think the speaker and 
listener are both young is that physical beauty fades 

with time. But the speaker assures her that even if her 

beauty fades away he'll still love her (3rd quatrain). 

Tone : the speaker might have been turned 
down before, so his tone is a little sad and earnest 

and very sincere. (Michelle) 

5. In this poem, we can "see" love because the 

speaker makes "love" concretely. He says that love is 

never shaken in tempest. Then we have a picture in 

which a tree or a stone or something would not be 

moved by the strong wind. And the speaker says love is 

a star. Then in our minds we see a shining star in the 

sky which comforts lonely person's heart. Next, he 

compare " time" with "bending sickle's compass." We 

don't know how time passed by quickly, but through a 

clear real thing we can feel time. Iit is like a bending sicle 

to cut plants down. It makes our youth go away.

(Nancy)

6. 

The first quatrain is all about changing while the second 

is all about not changing. In the third quatrain the writer 

uses one expression describing "unchanging" after 

one "changing." He deliberately creats contrast to 

convince the listener he is very determined: You see 

everything is an ordeal to my love but I just don't 

change. (Michelle)

7. Metaphor 

Metaphor enables us to understand the feeling a poet 

wants us to understand. The feeling are abstract, but 

the concrete things and its features we are all familiar 

with them. (Michelle)

8.The last two line means if I break my words then no 

other man can keep their promises, not havve they ever 

really loved. The speaker is telling the listener that he is 

the most determined man in loving a person in the 

whole uninverse. These two lines function as a 

reinforcement of his pervious statements. (Michelle)

9. In the poem, the speaker says that the most striking 

feature of love is that it remains the same 'tll doomsday.

(Michelle)

10. There are examples of unchanging love like Kim's 

love toward Christopher in musical "Miss Saigon," the 

wife of Odysseus who waited for him for twenty years. 

What I think is if you find your true love, then love can 

last forever. But problem is that true love is hard to find, 

just like diamonds, that's why pepole think such love is 

not realistic. (Michelle)