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)