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Old Friday, May 26, 2006
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Default In Love’s Eye

In Love’s Eye

Love is everywhere, and, even though love is not tangible, people refuse to believe that it exists. Perhaps their belief in love is what creates love, or perhaps it is the other way around. The greatest love is found when one least expects it as well as in people one least expects to find it in. Such an occurrence takes place in Isabella by John Keats. In this poem, two young people, Isabella and Lorenzo, fall in love, only to find that the sweetest and deadliest love is the love hidden away from the prying eyes.

Like every marketed love story out there, the poem starts off with two souls who secretly admire each other, yet are too afraid to admit it. In a society that at that time would quite possibly think lowly of the match, for why else would the two be so shy with their affections? Keeping their feelings to themselves seems to be the best solution. Of course, one can argue that the reason Isabella and Lorenzo are so hesitant to share their affections, is only natural of two human beings that are not sure of each other’s feelings and views. Whether or not they fear each other’s reactions of a confession of love, love cannot be kept inside, for it is a force that stirs the mind up.
In the first stanza of the poem, the reader finds out and is puzzled by the fact that Isabella and Lorenzo, live in the same house. One may suppose that Lorenzo works for Isabella’s parents or is a guest, or even horrifyingly a relation of Isabella. Those speculations notwithstanding one can see that the two can barely be in each other’s presence without wanting to confess their true love for each other. A perfect example of their feelings is:

They could not sit at meals but feel how well
It sooth each to be other by;
They could not, sure, beneath the same roof sleep
But to each other dream, and nightly weep. (5 – 8)


The two although so driven by emotions for each other, are calmed by the fact that they are in each other’s presence, for if they were not, they would be thinking of each other. This is also shown by line 8 that displays their constant presence in each other’s minds, even during sleep. They sleep only to wake up weeping in longing for each other.
The poem continues by narrating how the love of Isabel and Lorenzo, with each day, renews and becomes stronger. They both seem to find each other in mundane things. “Her lute string gave an echo of his name” (190) is one example of this. The love of the two has drenched every action and every thing in it and almost turned into an obsession. His love for Isabella has led Lorenzo into hearing and seeing Isabella even before she enters the room or is even in the same environment with him. These lines best express this growing obsession:
He knew whose gentle hand was at the latch
Before the door had given her to his eyes;
And from her chamber-window he would catch
Her beauty farther than the falcon spies; (17 – 20)


Seeing Isabella from Lorenzo’s point of view, one can truly witness the love that has possessed him, for he believes that he can sense her and see her farther away than a falcon with acute vision. Lorenzo is so blinded by love that nothing Isabella does and in her case nothing Lorenzo does, can be wrong or not magical.
At one point in the poem, the two lovers can barely stand to be near each other without spilling their love forth. Lorenzo is motivated to confess his love, but puts it off. “ ‘To-morrow will I bow to my delight / ‘To – morrow will I ask my lady’s boon.’ - / Honeyless days and days did he let pass;” (191). His procrastination results in making his lady, Isabella, sick. She cannot wait any longer, to get rid of this festering secret. It in turn is making her love- sick, as shown by these lines:
Until sweet Isabella’s untouch’d cheek
Fell sick within the rose’s just domain,
Fell thin as a young mother’s, who doth seek
By every lull to cool her infant’s pain: (33 – 36)


Isabella’s pain is the secret of happiness she must hide, until just confession of Lorenzo’s love towards her is revealed. Lorenzo finally sees that without a confession of his love to Isabella she will wither away in her love.
Though he knows what he must do, and wishes to do, Lorenzo is somehow overcome by shyness, almost a fear of confessing his love. His fear is found in these lines:
For power to speak; but still the ruddy tide
Stifled his voice, and puls’d resolve away –
Fever’d his high conceit of such a bride,
Yet brought him to the meekness of a child: (44 – 47)


Though Lorenzo knows the value of having Isabella and the happiness that they can both experience, it is hard for him to open himself up and become vulnerable. Yet again he is overcome by anguish, as he delays his confession, but as Isabella grows paler with sickness his passion and love finally outreaches his fear. He confesses his love and all is well. After overcoming both Lorenzo’s shyness and Isabella’s love- sickness, the two are quite happy as shown by these lines: “Great bliss was with them, and great happiness /Grew, like a lusty flower in June’s caress” (71 – 72). The greatest reward for the two lovers seems to be the happiness they reaped after a mild struggle of hearts.

John Keats. Isabella. English Romantic Poetry . Ed. Stanley Appelbaum.
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