Loss in Lady Mary Wroth's 'Song' Nemo Ali 12th Grade

Lady Mary Wroth masterfully conveys a deep sense of loss and betrayal in her poem ‘Song’ through her perspective of a jilted lover, using several literary devices like metaphors and similes to further communicate her heartbreak.

The poem speaks of a man who has left - a person who ‘breaketh’ ‘what he promiseth’, someone who will ‘glory to deceive you’. At first glance, the tone is very angry and bitter - the words used are simple, suggesting that the poem was written in an outburst of emotion, and a trochaic tetrameter is used, which has a very distinctive downward beat and stresses the first word of every sentence, a very common way to speak when angry or frustrated. However, there are breaks in the well-structured poem - there is a softness in her tone as she says ‘he’ll leave you’ in the third stanza, and her sadness leaks through, almost like a crack in her voice as if she is about to cry - the speaker is keeping up a facade of being angry in order to hide her true emotions of woe and despair. The next line is again angry: ‘And still glory to deceive you’. This presents the idea that the speaker needed that anger in her tone to keep talking - as if the anger is necessary to keep her mind away from the overwhelming sorrow...