THE LOVER

BY RICHARD ALDINGTON
Though I have had friends
And a beautiful love
There is one lover I await above all.
She will not come to me
In the time of soft plum-blossoms
When the air is gay with birds singing
And the sky is a delicate caress;
She will come
From the midst of a vast clamour
With a mist of stars about her
And great beckoning plumes of smoke
Upon her leaping horses.
And she will bend suddenly and clasp me;
She will clutch me with fierce arms
And stab me with a kiss like a wound
Thad bleeds slowly.
But though she will hurt me at first
In her strong gladness
She will soon soothe me gently
And cast upon me an unbreakable sleep
Softly for ever

ANALYSIS POETRY OF THE LOVER

As the beginning of the poetry analysis, let us talk about the poetry in general. The
poem that writer chose as the subject analysis is The Lover. This is a poem which written by
Richard Aldington, a novelist, poet and critic. It is printed in his collection of poetry Images
of War in 1919. It talks about a man or a shoulder that really want to dead and he wait for his
death. The author tries to deliver the poem with sweet words like a person who waiting his
lover. But I think the writer tries to use another way to describe the real meaning of the
poetry. The author states some compliments to the woman he awaits but I think the woman is
not literally a woman. A woman here refers to death which is smooth and cruel at the same
time. The death describes as woman because both woman and death are mysterious. In the
poem is also described that how happy he is imagining the moment when he will meet up
with his woman in the case his death. Because he is in the war so I think he is really tired of
being injured. He also realized that sooner or later the death will come to him. Then somehow
he wants to give up and let the death take his soul as soon as possible. Besides, the author
also talked about fears he face or probably he fears the situation he will face. Although he is
really wants to meet the death, he is also afraid to face it. Death is something that frightening
and also mysterious. He actually not ready enough to face the death but he wants to die. The
time where many assumed that it is in the World War I. The author still uses the image of
woman he awaits to depict the nerve and fears in his heart. The author tries to synthesize
desires and fears he felt in waiting the death during the war.
The first line of the first stanza, Though I have had friends.
From this line, the speaker is someone who has many friends. Also in this case I think
the word friend here means another soldier like him. He/she has to be in that place which
has not been stated directly in the poem. He/she is happy and it is implicitly showed by the
word though. Happy because he has many friend around him and also he is a little bit sad
because he feel there is something missing although he surrounded by many friends. The
word though here means a fact or an opinion that makes a statement about happiness is less
strong or less important. It is like something which is not clear enough to prove that he is
really happy. Actually in the real life, who will not happy if he/she surrounded by their
friends? In this poem maybe he/she has another feeling that he/she thinks something/someone
else and it makes he/she feels alone and does not happy. It is like you are alone in the crowd
place and some part of your life is missing.
The second and the third line from the first stanza, And a beautiful love There is one
lover I await above all.
In this line, we finally know why he/she feels not happy. It is like he describe what
makes him unhappy above all. It is the something else that I have stated before. He/she
thinks about a lover but in this case the lover is his death. Why I say the lover here means
death because I think he the character of this poem is really tired of war life and he wants to
give up. He/she is waiting death to take his soul, so he/she can release his pain during the war
and he/she can rest in peace. Peace is not that common thing that we can found in war

situation. How he/she really desire to meet the lover (the death). And this is thing that can
beat the happiness being with friends. I do think that these lines have some implicit meanings
behind them. All messages have been delivered indirectly in these lines. A person who feels
really tired being in a war situation and then he want to meet something that can really
release him from the pain of being in war and it is the factors why he does not feel happy.
The fourth line until the seventh line, She will not come to me In the time of soft plumblossoms When the air is gay with birds singing And the sky is a delicate caress;
The first word of the third line, finally, defines the gender of the narrator. The word
she here shows that the gender of the narrator is male. He describes that a lover he awaits is
she. I think the word she here does not literally refer to woman. It refers to the death. Death
here describe as a woman which is mysterious. Then, indeed it is definitely shows that the
narrator is male. Then he moves to some particular situations. These situations are where he
will not meet his lover (the death). The situation that he wants which is truly different from
what he faces at that time. The situation where his lover will not be able or even does not
want to meet up with him. The fifth line gives us image of spring season. Soft plum, even any
flowers or plants, blossom in spring season. It is when a very romantic scene is found. The
warm weather and colorful scenes of the flower blossom will bring us into a scene which is
appropriate for him to enjoy his death. He wants the peaceful and beautiful death. He does
not want the situation like what he faces in a war. It is like a contradictory situation with his
real life. The line 6 and 7 also give some beautiful impressions to support the situation from
the line 5. This is very beautiful scenery that makes him happy. As we know we almost never
feel some happiness in war so he wants to be happy when he dies. In these two lines are also
drawn the specific weather in the place where the death will not come. It is bright, not too hot
or cold, and there is no rain. It is like some factors that makes that the death havent come to
him because that is not the right time he dies. When birds are singing shows such a romantic
situation and it does not interfered by the rain or any bad of weathers. The singing of the
birds here gives us images of bright and clear day. The line 7 here shows us the condition of
the sky. The sky is bright but not hot since there are clouds that is protecting from the hot
sunshine. Delicate caress is used by the author to give an analogy of a friendly weather for
him. In these lines the woman (the death) will not or never come to that such of a place or a
time.
The line 8 to the line 12, She will come From the mist of stars about her And great
beckoning plumes of smoke Upon her leaping horses.
Here is the time and the place where the woman (the death) will come. In these lines
represent the situation in the place where the man actually is. Here I can start to guess the
place from line 9. The place that is so vast (wide) and very crowded. It can be in a large field
in which there are lots of people and I guess it is like a war situation. There will be no scenes
like described in these lines except there is something happening in that place. I can assume
that that place is a battlefield in which the two fortresses are met and attacking each other.
The woman (the death) will be able to reach the man only if she comes to that place which
is actually a battlefield.

The line 13 to 16 And she will bend suddenly and clasp me. She will clutch me with
fierce arms And stab me with a kiss like a wound That bleeds slowly.
Here, I think, the fear of death has started to appear. The narrator is in the situation in
which he imagines about his death. He is too afraid to face the truth that everyone can or even
will die in the battlefield. Then his imagination of death itself comes to his imagination. He
fears to face the death because in his mind death is really painful process. He imagines that he
will die in a battlefield with serious injured, being bombed and something related to a war
effect. He imagines that his death will find his dead body and bend suddenly and clasp him
into silent. The author tries to show that fear and desire of death and being died are fused into
one. The narrator imagines that he will be able to meet his death even in the battlefield. He
also imagines that his death will be like a kiss that feels like a wound that bleeds, beautiful
and also painful. He feels that way since there might be something happened to him during
the event. The feelings and images in this line might be related to this accident. The author
tries to illustrate that event in his work by using the narrator as the illustration of himself.
Here the author shows that the narrator wants a kiss from his death yet unfortunately he got
nothing but a wound that bleeds. It seems very painful at first. Death is not something joyful,
especially when somebody is on a battlefield, which there were lots of death happened in a
horrible way and the funeral after death may not be as proper as when somebody is died
because of some illness.
The line 17 to 21 But though she will hurt me at first In her strong gladness She will
soothe me gently And cast upon me an unbreakable sleep Softly ever.
I think this shows the narrators submission to the fate. But still, he is playing and
enjoying the imagination and the fact flowing in his mind. He imagines that his death will
come to visit him in the place where the narrator is which is in the battlefield. It may imply
that the man was actually afraid of death, but who does not? From the sentence But though
she will hurt me at first the narrator actually realize that he will got pain at first whenever
the death comes. But death here is something that the man also wanted, because in a
battlefield, the suffering was long and seemed unending, therefore somebody may asked to be
dead earlier than somebody else, due to the fact that every day he saw many death and in my
opinion, a normal person usually could not watch death consecutively. In the end, the death
did not feel hurtful, but like a peaceful sleep that you which take you to the heaven and
resting in peace.

OPINION AND CONCLUSION ABOUT THE LOVER POEM

In my opinion, the lover poem has contradictory meaning between the real meaning
and also the meaning in the surface. I got confuse when I read this poem for the first time. I
dont even get the real idea of this poem. It is like a romantic poem but also it is like a tragic
situation, it is like a conflict between the narrator and himself. Related to the real life, this
poem can be correlated with several things happened in the world. In conclusion, the poem
represented a persons desire and fear toward death, that may come anytime but not in a good
condition. He had waited for that a long time ago, and that may be because of the condition
surrounding, which was a war field. Here, the author used particular words which can
expressed how the death comes, and how does it feels when it really come to him. The words
used and the expression showed that death even it usually come out in not-so-nice way, but
the ending is worthy for the man, since he had waited for a long time. The point that is made
here by the author is even though death is something horrible; it is still have some particular
positive side, based on the authors opinion. Therefore, death is not something that feared the
human, because eventually everyone in the world will face their deaths. This poem can be
used to reflect the feeling of a person who is desperate, and wants to be dead soon. But in
specifically in this poem the desperation is because the war. Sometimes, people want
themselves to dead sooner, due to the fact that they cannot achieve something important in
life. Therefore, they feel hopeless and try some ways to make their life end. However, death
is not something pleasant it usually painful and horrible, especially if the person chooses
some painstaking ways to end his/her life, but the pain will be over soon, because after death,
somebody is free from the worldly business and rest in peace. Even though that person has
lots of relatives, friends, and maybe a lover, but they do not have any motivation left to live in
the world. Therefore, he/she hopes that death will come faster, until waiting for it feels like
waiting for a lover that went away long time ago and did not return ever since.

Authors Biography
Richard Aldington (18921962) was prominent in several literary capacities; most
notably as a founding poet of the Imagist movement and as a novelist who conveyed the
horror of World War I through his written works. He was also a prolific critic, translator, and
essayist. Though he considered his novels to be his most important works, he received much
critical attention for his biographies of such contemporaries as Lawrence of Arabia and D.H.
Lawrence. Aldington began his literary career in London as a part-time sports journalist after
leaving college and quickly became part of an influential circle of British writers that
included William Butler Yeats and Walter de la Mare. However, he became disillusioned with
the literary scene after returning from battle in World War I, and he moved to France and
lived the life of an expatriate writer abroad.
After 1957 the public's poor opinion of Aldington subsided somewhat, and his works
went back into print and he was given more editing work. Several of his works were
translated into Russian and he found himself quite surprised by his popularity in the Soviet
Union. In February of 1962, he received an invitation from Alexei Surkov, Secretary of the
Soviet Writers Union, to visit the USSR for the celebration of his seventieth birthday.
Aldington looked forward to having the opportunity to flaunt his acceptance among his
Russian readers to his fellow British intellectuals for whom he felt quite a bit of disdain.
Before his death in 1962, in a letter to Eric Warman in May of that year, Aldington writes that
with his trip to Leningrad and Moscow, "I shall at least have the pleasure of annoying some
people in G[reat] B[ritain]." Aldington was asked to give a speech to the Writer's Club in
Moscow during the celebration of his 70th birthday. Mikhail Urnov recalled Aldington's
words, "Here, in the Soviet Union, for the first time in my life I have met with extraordinary
warmth and attention. This is the happiest day of my life. I shall never forget it." Though
Aldington does not enjoy as widespread popularity today as some of his contemporaries, his
writings remain a good example of the thoughts and style of his generation. Terry Comito
writes in Dictionary of Literary Biography that Aldington had a gift for evoking with
considerable fluency large, uncomplicated emotions that readers have often found easy to
share, and his champions frequently cite Aldington's verse in order to argue that
contemporary poetry need not be obscurely intellectual. (poetryfoundation.org)